


Sins of Believing

by DeadpanPrincess



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blood, Espionage, F/M, Fix-It, Minor Character Death, Needles, So take that as you will, Spy Stuff, but also established relationship, slow burn?, so you know, spies being spies doing spying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-01-23 15:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12510504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadpanPrincess/pseuds/DeadpanPrincess
Summary: " 'Castor said I could save my last piece of intel for you. He wants me to have the most perfect wedding.' Jyn gazes up at him with doe eyes. It is easier, then, for him to fall into the role and look down at her with the same softness. His Jyn is sharp edges and he is secrecy. Tanith is love struck and malleable, so Castor will be too."--In other words: Jyn single handedly wins the war and doesn't know it.





	1. Vanity

She sits in the corner of the ship, a knife leveled firmly against a hunk of hair. Cassian watches silently from the open port. Jyn slices the lock and it floats down to the durasteel floor. She checks the evenness of the cut in the reflection of her knife. He is there in the background; Jyn is unsurprised. Neither of them break the comfortable silence.

Jyn returns to her hair. She shakes out her bangs with only exposed fingers from her leather gloves. Any section that falls into her eyes gets a sharp slide of her knife. Hair highlighted by the sharp glare of Hoth's sun riddles the floor. She works quickly, with familiar efficiency. Soon her eyes are framed by freshly uneven bangs.

"Enjoy the show?" She asks him. The corner of her mouth curls in a smile. 

"I never thought of how you maintained your appearance," Cassian admits. 

"It keeps me busy in the quiet moments," she says. Cassian fills in the rest of her thought: the endless silence of nights waiting for 'trooper boots to pass or the monotony of prison--where she would not have had a knife. Even he struggles to find razors in the Rebellion's bounty. If not for the necessity of camouflage, Draven would force him into laser hair removal like all the other soldiers. Vanity, he said, had no place in the Rebellion.

"So," Jyn says as she ruffles her bangs into place. "Where's Bodhi?"

"I am a pilot," Cassian reminds her.

"But Bodhi is _the_  pilot."

Cassian scrunches his lips to hide a smile. Jyn enjoys how his dimples crease into his cheeks from the tension. He peeks at her with enviable side eye, but she breaks the moment by focusing on the slide of her blade into a slot on her belt. The quiet eases between them.

"Would you li--" Jyn starts, only for an out of breath Bodhi to run up the ship's ramp.

"Sorry, sorry! Luke needed a last minute hand."

"I'm sure he did, mate." Jyn gives Bodhi a cheeky grin and claps her hand on his shoulder as she stands.

Bodhi pauses in his walk to the cockpit. He knows the sound of Jyn teasing. Cassian stares back at him blankly, all serious concentration. Bodhi shakes his head at both of them. Better for him to pretend disappointment than let them know he does not understand their jokes.

"How many hands do you think Luke needed, Cassian?" Jyn does not bother to look up from her seat buckle as Cassian chokes on his tongue. Bodhi gets it now and a flush spreads from the tops of his ears almost to his knuckles that perch atop the ship’s controls. He thanks the Force that his skin is dark enough and his hair is long enough to hide the blush growing on the back of his neck.

"You're filthy," Bodhi pouts. She hums in happy agreement. Cassian can no longer retrain his smile.

In retaliation, Bodhi thrusts the ship upwards. Jyn loses her footing, where she kicked her legs to the shoulder of his chair, and tips back. Cassian outright guffaws at her nonplussed expression and the sound of her heels slamming against the floor. Bodhi and Jyn whip around to look at him--until the Rebel air tower yells at Bodhi to watch where the kriff he is flying--and now Cassian is the one with red cheeks. Jyn gives him another one of her blindingly sharp smiles, accompanied by an eyebrow raised in challenge. Deliberately, Cassian settles back into his seat and closes his eyes. The heat of her attention and his embarrassment still linger.

* * *

They arrive in Utapau as dust blows fiercely atop the planet's sinkholes. Bodhi touches down outside of the main pathway, but still enough inside the sandstorm that the ship becomes battered and brown like the world outside. Jyn stays upright in her seat, lining her eyes carefully with kohl. Her knife still serves as her mirror despite the jostle of their landing. When she turns to nod her readiness at Cassian, her lashes are sooty from the makeup. Errant flecks of black dot her under eyes. He pauses, a moment of enjoyment for how carefully she creates herself, before locking into the role of captain.

"Weapons?" Cassian asks.

"The ship has two guns, one in the front and back--only to be used in case of emergency," Bodhi promptly answers.

"Two knives, one truncheon, two blasters with second round recharge," Jyn says as she languidly winds a knife into her bun. She tucks the blade close to her scalp so the hilt appears more decorative than dangerous.

"Three knives," Cassian corrects. He nods to the one in her hair.

"Two unexpected knives and one surprise knife." Jyn compromises. Cassian's jaw tightens with amusement again.

Bodhi lowers the ship's ramp as a not-so-subtle command to get off his ship before he shoves their faces together.  Jyn tickles the back of his neck as she stomps out. Cassian takes a half second, standing just behind Bodhi's chair.

"If we're not back in three days, call Chirrut."

"For back-up?" Bodhi asks.

"To know if back-up is worth calling," Cassian says grimly. Bodhi's nostrils flare and he looks ready to argue, but he jerks a nod all the same. Cassian squeezes his shoulder before following Jyn down into the deep holes of Utapau's marketplace.

* * *

Jyn and Cassian meet Elerica Vin at a nicer stall in the upscale section of the market. Silk lies under expertly tailored bantha leather, and each piece is dyed with the bright colors of wealth. Elerica wears one of her own designs, a sharp red corset with yellow silk ties that leaves room for both her ample breasts and her second pair of arms. She blinks her clear eyelids, but Cassian cannot determine if the action is from surprise or the glare from the next stall's lantern. The light swings into her line of sight and lets him see the all-consuming black of her fully dilated pupils.

"Tanith!" She cries. "I haven't seen you since the 'troopers marched you out in handcuffs!" The market shifts nervously. Another vendor turns off his lantern. He is now closed. Jyn, for her part, does not tense. She quickly scoots around Elerica's stand and wraps the taller woman in a hug that encompasses both sets of arms. Cassian stays ramrod straight, pretending to feel 'trooper armor against his skin.

"You will never believe who fell for my reformed self!" Jyn says with equal excitement as she gestures to Cassian.

"Why, you lucky girl! A Stormtrooper!"

Another business's lantern goes dark.

"You always told me the Empire would provide," Jyn giggles.

"If only I had known how well," Elerica titters, but her dark gaze is hungry on Cassian. He refuses to cut his eyes away, so Jyn tugs childishly at Elerica's arm to regain her attention.

"We're getting married! I always told you I'd wear one of you designs, didn't I?" Jyn says.

"Your 'trooper" has money," Elerica says, greedy.

Here, Cassian interjects, "Officer, actually."

"Newly appointed," Jyn says, though her playful smile melts slowly. "So new that the credit raise hasn't come in yet."

"I don't work for free, Tanith," Elerica says. Jyn catches the scolding undertone and adrenaline rushes into her veins. The older woman still falls for her tricks. Elerica still only sees Tanith as a young girl, a survivor, but one whose pluck hides her naiveté.     

"I know, I didn't forget!" Jyn circles the table so she can clutch Cassian's elbow. She purposefully left her leather gloves on their ship and now her palms warm the sand coating his skin.

"Castor said I could save my last piece of intel for you. He wants me to have the most perfect wedding." Jyn gazes up at him with doe eyes. It is easier, then, for him to fall into the role and look down at her with the same softness. His Jyn is sharp edges and he is secrecy. Tanith is love struck and malleable, so Castor will be too.

"That's how you met then?" Elerica pries. "You fed him information?"

Jyn nods happily, a vacant smile across her face. Elerica's hunger becomes gluttonous. Intel enough to free the vapid Tanith from prison could certainly change the course of Elerica's life.

"Well," she pretends to ponder. "Let's hear it. Once I know what you have, I can decide if it's worth my labors." Elerica gestures to a particular set Tanith had appreciated before her arrest. The corset is lined in lavender silk and the skirt mixes purple with a delicate, creamy satin. Elerica had always said that it would contrast nicely with the girl's eyes.

"Of course," Jyn eagerly agrees. "It's--"

"Not how we do business." Cassian inserts himself into the negotiations. "This is not a matter to be taken lightly. She will tell what you what the information regards and take half of her outfit. If you determine that you can handle something so important, then we will share the rest and take what we're owed."

He taunts and teases, flashing the idea of information in front of Elerica like the silver scales of bashful fish hitting a ray of sun. A quick glimpse of their intel's importance. Nothing more.

"Castor!" Jyn whines. She yanks petulantly on his arm. Cassian covers her hand with his own, ever the loving fiancée, but his eyes remain on Elerica.

"Sweet boy. I can _handle_ any and all information. Tell me now, I won't wait."

He flicks his eyes to Jyn. She is still wordlessly pleading. Her black liner makes the green of her eyes deeper and more desperate. Cassian sighs, a lover's acquiescence.

"If you must," he says. The Corsucanti vowels prick the roof of his mouth. With his permission, Jyn flies to the lilac outfit, her grip so fierce that her knuckles whiten.

"It's about the Rebellion base," she says.

Cassian locks down every muscle to keep from tensing. Shock punches him squarely in the gut. It feels similar to Jyn's truncheon.

"Please, please." Elerica waves Tanith on to take the set she so clearly coverts, and to continue. Jyn draws the top and skirt to her chest, winding her arms around the rich silk. Cassian wants to strangle her with it.

"The rebels are till on Yavin IV," Jyn says.

"That's not possible. The Empire has already come and gone there."

"Yes, but the Rebels buried their base far underground. They're there still," Jyn explains.

Cassian relaxes, though nothing about his expression or stance changes. He does not even exhale in relief. His trust is tangible, but tenable.

Elerica presses her reptilian lips together in an approximation of a human smile. Jyn finds the same lack of warmth there as she did over a year ago.

"How did you learn this?" Elerica asks.

"When they took me to Wobani, I shared a cell with a rebel. Apparently, I look like someone they were searching for, and she told me how they dug into the planet. I guess she wanted me to know where to find them?" The small grain of truth inside her web helps Jyn to keep her gaze guileless. Elerica nods, contemplative. A rebel valuable for capture rather than death would have enough secrets for a perceived ally. Though, the scum is known to bite down on poison before giving up their precious Resistance. Yet, Tanish is so young and fresh, anyone could believe her to be untainted by allegiance--she contrasts totally with the horrible image rebels paint of the Empire. Elerica is the only one who can see the truth. A woman such as Tanith, with a newly shorn haircut and makeup in the middle of dirty war, would betray for her vanity without understanding or remorse.

"You're giving me such a gift, Tanith," Elerica praises. The girl's face lights up with pleasure. "Let me give you another wedding gift in return."

Castor nods with light encouragement. Such a guarded, calm man. He does not match the other Imperial officers Elerica has met, but she knows that the power and wealth of his new position will open him like it has his peers. Without fear of hunger and vindictive command, his walls will crumble. Elerica cannot wait for when she shares her new intelligence and her elevated position lets her experience the same.

"Do not worry about the Rebellion. The Death Star will blow them out of the sky," she says.

Cassian stays calm, but Jyn can't hide how the color melts from her face. She still smiles, a wax carving of upturned lips.

"I was informed that the Rebels had destroyed it," he says. Cassian forces his whole attention onto Elerica and tamps down the urge to reach for Jyn.

"The first one only," Elerica says.

"Well," Jyn cuts in. Her voice grates against false cheer. "The Empire is certainly industrious!" Cassian cannot see her eyes. He cannot look at her, but he can guess at the despair she feels. All for nothing.

"That it is, my dear. Now, run along with your handsome officer. I'm sure you have a few ways to celebrate the good news!" Elerica waves them off as Jyn simpers. She makes a few halfhearted attempts to have Elerica as a wedding guest before she and Cassian slip quietly back into the darkness of Utapau's sinkholes. Jyn drops all pretenses of Tanith. She stomps away from the market, as if her steps could cause an earthquake. There is nothing but the ship ahead, the sinking star, the rising of nine Utapaun moons. It is futile to try. Jyn always knew that, but somewhere after Scarif she thought action trumped selective ignorance. She shrugged off her apathy for hope and now she feels the heartbeat of obligation and duty, but she cannot handle its disappointment like Cassian.

He follows just a half step behind her. Cassian keeps his hands close to his sides, but his palms itch. Jyn does not parse through intelligence like he does. She does not understand the gift she has inadvertently given to the Rebellion. He would tell her now, but her right hand hovers over her concealed blaster and he would like to leave one mission without a burn. She seems too lost to her misery to do anything but shoot. 

They weave through the few people who linger. Darkness submerges their sinkhole. Lanterns flicker on, stuttering behind windows and underneath durasteel doors. Cassian feels the weight of a watch along the line of his shoulders. No one tails them, but the whole of Utapau's population centers on the market. Any move too conspicuous rewards them with a tracker. Quickly, Cassian sidles to Jyn's side and tucks her trigger hand delicately on his elbow. Her gait slows to match his. The rough pads of her fingers prickle goosebumps up his arm.

Despite the lightness of her touch, Jyn does not stop scowling heavily. The emotive lines around her mouth pull tight. Cassian's worry washes over her and she tenses further. Jyn should mask her fury with the easily placated smile of Tanith. Elerica has informants all over the planet, but Jyn cannot force herself to care. The futility stabs like a vibroblade.

Their ship blends in neatly with the surrounding desert, though she can still make out a glint of metal under one of the moons. Bodhi beckons, a small comfort. Jyn moves faster and Cassian lengthens his stride to keep pace. He also sees the barest outline of the ship--as well as a possible end. Peace hovers just ahead. It is only a debriefing away.

Jyn stomps up the on-ramp, shaking Cassian off as she goes. For a moment, his elbow stays aloft for the phantom of her hand, but then he snaps back into the role of captain. Cassian takes the copilot's seat while Bodhi starts the engine. No one speaks, though Bodhi presses his lips together so tightly that they turn white.

* * *

The drop back into atmo makes Jyn aware of how the skin of her nose adheres to the cartilage below. Her body compresses and expands infinitesimally. Neither Cassian nor Bodhi ever shift in their seat from discomfort. Only Jyn squirms against her snug safety strap. Bodhi tilts his head to view her in his peripheral, and Jyn scowls. She is absolutely fine and in no way needs him fussing over her. Just because space makes her want to crawl out of her own body does not mean she needs to be watched like a temperamental child. Even when she was one, no one had looked after her.

Cassian is better at hiding his concern. Just the front of his eyebrows pinch downwards and only his cupid's bow thins. Jyn has not spoken to him—either of them--in ten hours. She grunted in affirmation when Bodhi asked if she was alright, and then poorly feigned sleep for the next nine hours. He boggles at her reaction. Jyn is usually a fine strategist and can find escape hatches in a black hole. They never would have made it off Scarif if she had not commandeered an Imperial ship and shoved at Cassian's broken ribs to keep him awake enough to fly. Yet she does not understand that she is about to bestow a gift onto Intelligence, onto _Draven._ There is only failure for her, while Cassian has hope, real hope. The kind of wanting that a lifetime of war never allowed. The Death Star will return to Yavin IV, and this time, the Rebels will be waiting.


	2. Pride and Wrath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Cassian hedges. Draven stares him down. He hears the hesitance, the lie cloaked in truth. Neither man moves, and total silence filters over Intelligence Command. Every officer puts down their work to watch the insubordination of Draven's favorite operative. The quiet highlights the rattle of Jyn's zippers as her leg jiggles. She wishes they would just fight it out."
> 
> \--  
> In other words: Jyn doesn't get that a second Death Star could be the Rebellion's hope and Cassian waylays that explanation in favor of feels.

Draven stands at attention as Cassian ushers in his team. The general’s hands twine together behind his back and his arms flex with the effort. He even refrains from blinking too quickly, keeping his eyes on Rogue One for as long as possible. Cassian has only seen Draven like this once before: after the destruction of Alderaan. Draven had found Cassian in the medbay. His best operative lay trapped by a shattered spine and their only hope for survival was lost in space. Draven may not have blinked at all when he relayed the news. Cassian was too fuzzed out on painkillers to remember clearly.

The general's current stillness is not hopelessness, though. It is the calm of thought that endears Draven to the Council. Contingency after contingency forms in his mind's eye. Around him, Intelligence Command hums with restless energy. Every officer takes their designated space and watches their screens. Some have dropped one ear of their headphones to better listen to the incoming report. Others prefer to ignore Rogue One completely. They still have not forgiven Cassian for their losses. 

Jyn, beside Cassian, is a riot of motion. Her fingers drum against her visible blaster, her weight shifts from one braced leg to the other, and her mouth constantly reshapes with anger. Grief tries to press the restless movement out of her, but fury keeps her fidgeting. She is supposed to be done with war rooms and councils and fear too abstract to contain. When Skywalker destroyed the Death Star--the first one--she should have been free of guilt. Jyn takes on the sins of the Rebellion, but she should no longer carry her father's. Yet she is still here, paying for him again. 

"Report," Draven commands. 

Cassian answers, like he always has. "Rogue One approached Sergeant Erso's contact with no resistance. Both the sergeant and myself were able to engage without issue. Under cover of engaged couple Tanith Porta and Castor Willix, we convinced the target that we had information for her. Target believed our intel and offered information." 

"And?" Draven knows, but he asks to the benefit of the other Intelligence officers' attentive ears. 

"There is a second Death Star," Cassian says. Intelligence does not stop working, but they complete their actions more quietly.

"And why did the target offer this information?" Draven asks. 

Cassian is fairly sure the general has already figured at least five scenarios where such intel would be imparted, but Draven never accepts assumptions. He wants Cassian to confirm his suspicions, but he underestimates how the captain cares for his crew.  

"The target believed it important to our covers," Cassian hedges. Draven stares him down. He hears the hesitance, the lie cloaked in truth. Neither man moves, and total silence filters over Intelligence Command. Every officer puts down their work to watch the insubordination of Draven's favorite operative. The quiet highlights the rattle of Jyn's zippers as her leg jiggles. She wishes they would just fight it out.

"Obviously it was me," she says, exasperated. Cassian closes his eyes as Draven looks to her.

"Explain, Sergeant Erso."

"I was the one who told the target that there was a rebel base on Yavin IV," Jyn clarifies. She holds Draven's gaze, but her leg bounces more aggressively. One or two of the surrounding officers freeze. It is their only indication of anger.

"That was not the false plant you were ordered to give," Draven says.

"Well, your original plan would have allowed the target to pass along information without consequences," Jyn defends.

 "That was not your call to make, Sergeant." Draven enunciates her rank, calling attention to the disparity of power between them. Jyn does not care if he is named the supreme ruler of all the galaxies, though. She shoves forward, her chin thrust up so she can keep meeting his eyes. Cassian and Bodhi do not even try to stop her. They eye each other before simultaneously agreeing to let the situation play out.  

 "This is the woman who had me thrown in prison! You knew that and you still sent me to Utapau! Don't pretend like this is a surprise," Jyn says. 

 "Back up, Sergeant." Draven tries to intimidate respect by looming over her, but Jyn just rests her fists against her hips and digs in her heels. 

 "This is a game to you. Our lives are forfeit in service to your ideal Rebellion. But you don't get that people who are fighting need to be just as human as those they're trying to save!" 

 "I said back up.” Draven’s voice drops with the threat.

 "I took an opportunity and it led to more intelligence. Important intelligence! Don't tell me that it's not as good as the death of some random Imperial officer." 

 "Jyn--" Cassian tries. She whirls on him, keeping Draven in her peripheral. 

 "You're practically giddy! No wonder no one on Alderaan survived when this is how you care for the members of your Alliance!" Jyn storms out of the room, sweeping past the shocked rise of Cassian’s eyebrows. Her words echo behind her. Bodhi follows, as if he can escape her accusation by leaving. A moment of complete quiet settles on Command, and then a heavy _slam_ of bone hitting durasteel reverberates through the room.

The sound restarts Intelligence Command. Officers return to faking their attention on work. Draven and Cassian do not bother to move. They still stand across from each other, but now Cassian's eyes burn fire. 

 "Say it," Draven waves him on, almost drolly. 

 "She's not wrong," Cassian says. 

 "She disobeyed orders for petty revenge." Draven stays even. His hands clasp behind his back again. 

 "It doesn't make her wrong," Cassian says more firmly. Draven examines him, a quick brush of his eyes over the soldier he knows. The body language gives away nothing, but Draven can see the tension in his jaw and how Cassian's neck cranes forward. He almost looks like Erso from a moment ago. They share the same rage, a well of passion that Draven prefers deeply buried in his agents.  

 Draven dismisses Cassian with an abrupt nod. Cassian does not return the salute as he leaves. The automatic doors whoosh gently closed behind him. 

* * *

 He finds Jyn in his room, the impersonal neatness disturbed. Jyn has thrown their lone blanket on the ground and obviously punched their pillow with the fist not cradled against her chest. Thankfully, she left the rest of the room alone in preference of curling over herself on the mattress. 

 "Let me see," Cassian demands as he walks in. There is no reason to pretend she is anything other than hurt. He heard the crack of her fist. Jyn only glares and pulls her injured hand further into the hollow at her clavicle. The furious color of her cheeks pops against the dingy grey of the room. 

 "At least let me reset your knuckles," he sighs. She does not lose her angry scowl, but Jyn scooches closer to the edge of the bed. Exhaustion duels with humor as Cassian offers his own palm as a resting place. She lays her hand down upon it. His legs bracket her on either side so he can better probe her injury. Three of her knuckles swell, and her harshly lined skin almost seems new as the internal bleeding pulls the dermis tight. Cassian hisses in commiseration. She has definitely broken two knuckles and possibly fractured a finger. He will have to play doctor because Jyn will never go the medbay, even if they could spare resources. 

"The wall punched back," he teases. His voice does not change in tone, but lilts with the joke. 

"Kriff you," Jyn says. She is equally tired and toneless and uninvested in a fight. 

Cassian huffs in amusement while reaching for his medkit in the nightstand. He cannot waste bacta on such a minor injury, but he can wrap her knuckles in the bandage she usually tapes on for sparring. Carefully, he winds the cloth from her finger joint to her wrist. Each jerk of the wrap pulls tighter and tighter, pushing the blood back to where it belongs. Jyn lifts a bare smile at the sight of her comically swollen, bandaged fist. She now has a fabric anvil at the end of her arm. 

 Cassian stays silent as he tucks the end of the cloth into itself. The material seals nicely at her pulse, and he keeps his fingers pressed there as he situates himself next to her. Jyn sits stiffly as his weight shifts the bed. She tenses when he cradles her hand, but she does not pull away.

 "Don't lie to me," she says suddenly. Jyn does not look at him when she speaks. She keeps her eyes focused on where she feels his thumb rubbing circles on her palm. Cassian swallows as he rejects potential responses. His thumb never ceases. 

 "Have I?" He asks. 

 "You have too much hope." Jyn seemingly changes topic, but Cassian catches the thread of her logic. His belief in the Rebellion is something she will never share. Jyn believes in Rogue One, in the Pathfinders, in the people around her. The abstract idea of revolution cannot hold her. Especially when that revolution is threatened by a danger she knows too well.  

 "We're prepared for them this time," Cassian says.

 "What about next time? Or the time after that?" She challenges.

 "They won't have a third one, this one surfaced too quickly. It must have been built simultaneously with the first," he explains. He had K2 run the data to ensure accuracy. The droid had commended his foresight.

 "There's no guarantee that the flaw exists in this one. Or that they're not building a third one right now. Don't be short sighted." Jyn stands, her anger propelling her again. Cassian stays seated. His eyes follow her from corner to corner as she paces.

 "So what would you have us do, Jyn?" As if he does not know. The urge to run crackles along the fine hairs of her arms. Jyn radiates with flight.

 "I'm always going to be Galen Erso's daughter," Jyn evades. Cassian keeps his mouth shut. More lingers on the tip of her tongue. "Saw Guerrera's Partisan. Rogue One's sergeant."

 "I only see Jyn Erso," he says. Jyn stills and regards him sadly, but a fondness keeps a pinprick of light in her eyes.

 "You will always be the Alliance's captain," she releases. The idea shocks him. He, like his long lost blaster, belongs to her. Cassian gives himself to her freely, but maybe a thief never owns what is not taken.

 "I haven't been. Not for some time," Cassian says to his hands as he cradles them in his lap. Scarif, Eadu, Jedha; they all lay thick in the unsaid. Jyn freezes. Her shoulder blades bunch and release. She turns slowly with her weight in her heels.

 "Cassian?" Jyn prods. An eerie reminder of Draven's need for assurance steels his spine.

 "I'm yours, Jyn." It is a declaration more real than any. Cassian has said "I love you" to informants, marks, lovers, but he never relinquishes himself. Wind rushes past his ears, cutting off his oxygen. He falls thirty stories all over again; and all he can see is Jyn, her green eyes dark like the leaves of Fest, like blaster bolts at night, like how she looked at him in that turbolift.

 Panic claws at her throat and threatens to spill from her lips, but she grounds herself in his expression. She has seen Cassian physically naked and has fucked him in every corner of this room, but never did he let her see his heart. He reveals everything now in soft words and an even gentler look. He shares her fear, but Cassian can reconcile himself to the inevitable.

 Jyn pulls roughly on her bun. A pin clatters to the floor. They stay fixed on one another, damn the disturbance.

 She licks her lips in preparation. "I don't know how to do anything but fight," she warns. Cassian smiles at that and his dimples materialize in his beard. This is his Jyn, kind enough to threaten before tearing him apart.  

 "I know," he says. The honesty of that throws her. Jyn opens her mouth to argue, just because it feels necessary, but Cassian cuts her off.

 "Let me fight with you." He says both a question and a promise.     

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Thank you so much for the warm reception to chapter one! I've started to flesh out this story and I'm hoping to post once every two weeks--but seeing as I'm traveling I thought I'd get this chapter out early. Besides, I wanted to see if you liked it! It features a tragic lack of Bodhi, K2, Chirrut, and Baze, but they should be appearing very soon! ;) 
> 
> Also, please come find me on Tumblr @deadpanprincess! I LOVE LOVE LOVE prompts and requests. It all (and reviews) feed the muse!


	3. Gluttony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'Are you leaving?' Bodhi tries again.
> 
> She had considered it. Running is the only familiar action; but Jyn cannot disappear anymore. There are people she loves and who she will not leave--not completely."
> 
> \--  
> Nothing falls into place, because living is never that easy.

His hand rests between her shoulder blades, the touch so light that Jyn feels energy radiating from his fingers rather than the physical weight of the limb. She keeps her shoulders lowered and neutral. They try to crawl up towards her ears.

It is just that, Cassian touches her more, now. Not enough to catch anyone's attention, but certainly more frequently than their previous playact as strict Captain and Sergeant. Jyn attempts to relax into the simple physicality, but she only knows touch as aggression. Contact means that they found her, that they have her, that they can hold her.

The raucous noise of the mess hall does not help. Forks clatter, spoons tap, knives jolt against duraplastic plates. Every sound makes her jump further into the hand at her back. She hunches forward over her own mush, but Cassian’s hand follows her. The length of his body presses against her side. Jyn cannot escape the heat of him.

Even sex--before Cassian--was an unpassionate coupling where two people grinded against each other for a brief release. With Cassian, Jyn still has to steal private moments. She grabs him by the back of his jacket and yanks him into an empty hanger, or sends him urgent messages so he rushes to their room. Then he spans her ribs with his palms, his breath hot and damp against her neck, his stomach rigid as he moves under her. Touch is a critical piece of their tactile vocabulary, yea, but Jyn wants to keep his touches for herself. Cassian loudly proclaims _them_ with his small, possessive gestures while she fights to keep something out of the Rebellion's grasp.

She still shares his quarters, though. Jyn still lists him as her next of kin. Their relationship is so tied into the Rebellion that distance cannot exist. It does not stop her wanting.

They separate as they leave the mess hall. Cassian turns one way, Jyn another. His hand lowers and lingers at the small of her back, still too faint to truly feel. He has a meeting with some fancy named officer she has not bothered to memorize. She has to teach the fresh-off-the-ships how to not die. It is just another too-quick moment between responsibilities that she accepted but never asked for. Reconciling their time together and apart gives her a headache. The Rebellion controls that too.

* * *

Jyn punches her need into her current recruit. The private dodges well, but drops her hands as she weaves. Jyn flows through the movement. Her hips twist for added power. She slams her fist into the private's cheek and the woman drops to the ground in a heap. The other recruits eye each other. It has been at least a month since Sergeant Erso laid someone out so fully. The last time was when Bodhi Rook was MIA after the destruction of the Death Star.

"M'am?" A private asks. All of the recruits line up against the wall, waiting for their turn to spar with the Sergeant. Each of them have damp spots of sweat on their new uniforms. She has run them through their paces before kicking the bantha shit out of them. Not unusual, but certainly not following the protocol that has been instilled into them since landing on Hoth.

Jyn grunts an encouragement for the private to continue. She does not turn towards him or help up the recruit she knocked out. Her fingers waggle to release the tension of her fist.

"Ma’am, maybe we could--" Another bead of sweat runs down Private Prashik’s face.

"Sergeant Erso, your presence is requested," K2 interrupts. Jyn's trainees exhale with relief for the interruption. Jyn turns on her heel to meet Kay's dark blue lenses. The droid stands straight and firm before the open training room door. It makes conscious the effort to stand apart from the new recruits.

"By who?" She demands.

"Captain Andor," K2 says. It and Jyn stare each other down. The recruits go back to holding their breath.

"Tell him I'll be there in an hour," she says.

"He says it is urgent."

Jyn eyes the droid for another moment. She could take it in its new body. K2--K4-PN if she wants to be specific (but it is more bothered when she is not)--no longer stands at seven feet with an impenetrable chassis. It currently resides in a smaller protocol droid, made for diplomacy over warfare. Yea, Jyn could definitely rip out a few wires before it dragged her to Cassian.

Kay balances its weight more firmly into the ground. A few quick calculations and it assures itself of Jyn Erso's three most common engagement moves and their statistically successful rebuttals. Jyn takes a step towards it. Then another. One more step, her jaw tense, and then she walks straight past K2 with only a mock jab at its metallic arm. K2 swerves too hard for the light tab and almost falls, optical-sensor side down, as he hustles to follow her. Laughter and relieved chatter from the recruits reverberates against the durasteel door as it slides closed behind them.

"That display was not necessary," Kay scolds from her side. It may not be a giant any more, but its stride is still long enough to make up any head start she may have. The added length lets it cock its head as if curious, and still catch her eye. "Did you engage in such an activity to prove your dominance to the other organics?" It asks.

"Nope," Jyn sing-songs. "That was just an added benefit."

"Then the primary objective was to irritate me?" Kay queries.

"Isn't it always?" Jyn goads. Kay's new hardware rattles and clanks in a cadence similar to Cassian's amused sigh. It then speeds up its pace in retaliation. The droid quickly directs her down one corridor after another, its arm outstretched with beleaguered patience. Jyn could jog to keep up, but she prefers to stroll a few feet behind Kay and cause it to approximate a sigh again.

After the third turn, Jyn recognizes the blank durasteel of command quarters. Unlike the areas occupied by the lower ranking rebels, command has no flyers or pictures or color. The hallways are cleaned to a spit shine and the only wall adornment is the first initial and family name or affiliation of each officer. Kay leads her into the bare quarters that serve as Intelligence's meeting room. Only a thick, too wide table and two chairs fill the space. Intelligence does not even bother with a holoscreen. All communication is to be passed by flimsi and then destroyed. Jyn has had a few warm nights on Hoth burning Cassian's latest brief.

"I thought he had a Council meeting," she says. Kay pulls out a chair for her, though Jyn refuses to sit.

"He does." Its lenses flash bright blue with the response. A surprising tell for the droid, one that informs Jyn instantly.

"Cassian told you to come get me."  

"The direct order was to, and I quote: 'keep you from breaking any new soldiers.' Apparently, it is due to your recent foul mood. I have analyzed your latest social interactions and do not see the difference he seems to find."

Jyn slams her fist on the conference table. K2 does not react. It is too similar to how Cassian handles her outbursts.

"He doesn’t get to tell me how to train my recruits!" She says. 

"Captain Andor is your commanding officer," Kay taunts, though its tone stays level. 

"We'll see about that." Jyn cracks her knuckles sharply. K2 steps easily in front of the singular door. They evaluate each other, and this time Jyn has a hand on the blaster at her thigh. 

"I would not recommend this path of action, Jyn Erso." Kay is just egging her on now.  

Jyn sneers. Her upper lip curls back from her teeth with a barely contained snarl. She will not be told what to do. With a flick of her wrist, Jyn draws her blaster and fires. Kay defends its function operations with its arms crossed in a wide x over its mainframe. No bolt comes. K2 lowers its arms and mocks, "You have missed." 

There is nothing but empty space in front of Kay. Its aural sensors pick up the clank of Jyn's boots in the hallway, and its olfactory sensors receive chemical compounds that register as smoke from the damaged control panel next to the door it guards.  

* * *

Jyn walks swiftly through the corridors. Turning, turning, turning through the soft memory she has of the base. She did not bother to memorize the layout. They had not expected to be on Hoth so long.

She reaches the farthest ship terminal. A softly hummed song leads her past one x-wing after another until she finds the source of the music. Black Imperial boots wiggle in rhythm as he sings. He has wedged himself sideways so that his toes and the top of his head peek out on either side of the dilapidated ship. Grease smears across Bodhi's goggles and the ends of his newly shorn hair. Jyn can no longer pull him out from under a ship by the silk of his ponytail.

Everything changes like that.

Jyn enjoys the calm before kneeling carefully to where she knows he has his face jammed into a hyperdrive. She flicks his ear. His toes wave in greeting.

"Bodhi," she says. "I need the ship."

He pops out from underneath the hull. Behind the oil stains and the lenses, excitement mixes with apprehension.

"We have a mission?" He asks.

"No," Jyn answers hard and cold. Bodhi only tilts his head. His goggles slip down past his right eye. Jyn recognizes the question in the slant, but she does not have to answer.

"Are you leaving?" Bodhi tries again.

She had considered it. Running is the only familiar action; but Jyn cannot disappear anymore. There are people she loves and who she will not leave--not completely.

"No," Jyn says again.

Bodhi studies the angry press of her lips. The expression she once wore on Jedha looks wrong on the post-Scarif Jyn. Her mouth does not form righteous selfishness in the same way. She can no longer pretend to afford the luxury of apathy, though she still tries. The only tell is the quiver that lurks in her chin.

So Bodhi leaves the rest of his questions because he cannot stand to see her cry. If Jyn says she is not leaving, then she is escaping. He remembers the claustrophobia of responsibility and commitment, and a promise made to the only man he could trust. Jyn has never known that kind of security. Bodhi will not begrudge her the freedom to find it.

"Do you want me to come?" He swears to himself that it is his last question.

"Yes," Jyn laughs. The sound hollows in the middle. Bodhi gets that too. She claps her hand on his shoulder, a bland goodbye that he does not accept. Bodhi shimmies out completely from under the ship and pulls them both to standing. He throws his arms around her waist. Bodhi inhales cold sweat and fear, strength and sterility of the sonic 'fresher from the crook of her neck. He promises himself that he will not forget how she smells. A small detail that only few are privileged to know.

"I'm going to miss you," he says into her jacket collar. Cassian's jacket collar, actually. For a split second, Bodhi worries about his captain. The moment passes as Jyn releases him. She busses a soft peck and a quiet, "Me too," against Bodhi's cheek.

He steps back and watches as Jyn vaults into the x wing's open cockpit. At least she takes one of the ships he has worked on himself. It will definitely get her wherever she needs to go.

Repulsor engines warm the cold Hoth hangar. Bodhi stays as the roof opens, as Jyn poorly pilots out, as the ship disappears.

* * *

Cassian only receives a message on his datapad. It reads:

  
_I don't belong to you._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again everyone!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter--we're getting so close to the end. I think about two more chapters before this puppy is wrapped up. 
> 
> So I wanted to make a few things clearer:
> 
> 1) This story, while being centered around the 7 deadly sins, doesn't really focus on them. It's much more about the little details. I started because I wanted to explain why someone with so little vanity as Jyn would wear make up in the middle of a war. Its becoming about how to be open and vulnerable when you're so set in your ways...I don't know. Jyn is angry and scared and harsh and loving, she's a mess of contradictions that is so interesting to write. 
> 
> 2) K2 is referred to as it, not because it is an object, but because I really wanted to get away from gendering a droid. Unless someone programmed him to have a gender, or there was some reason that made sense for the situation, I don't get why Kay would be on the binary. Weird maybe, but it's something that's been bothering me. 
> 
> 3) PLEASE DON'T HATE JYN FOR HOW SHE LEAVES
> 
> 4) Please comment or leave kudos or come drop me a line at at deadpanprincess.tumblr.com. Prompts and other requests are always, always, always welcome!!


	4. Sorrow/Despair and Lust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'Not everything is such an expected battle, little sister.'
> 
> Jyn stops trying to shove Baze. Her hands pause above his chest, the futility of her action unimportant. She glares at Chirrut through the too long line of her bangs.
> 
> 'What's that supposed to mean?' She asks, all her impotent physical aggression carrying into her voice.
> 
> Above the ringing, Baze explains. 'The way you fight must match the outcome you want.'"
> 
> \--  
> Where sorrow is quiet and lust is for the life she unknowingly wants.

Her ship ekes out a landing in one of the crystalline forests, skidding to a stop. The x-wing smashes a glass-like tree and cracks the forest's undergrowth. Black tracks mark her uneven path. Everything smokes. Transparent flora and fauna traps fiery exhaust around the ship. Jyn has to jump out of the cockpit with her scarf tied tightly over her mouth.

Christophsis reverberates with quiet. Ever since the Empire had mined the crystalline planet for its remaining kyber, no one bothers to travel there. Any previous settlements are long decayed and covered by more glass. The world is a tomb of faith where the dead can be seen under the slimmest covering of crystal.

Jyn steps carefully over the remains of a child’s doll. A Stormtrooper, like the one she had has a child. A memory whispers at the back of her mind, but she shoves it down. She walks away harder, the sound of her footsteps overshadowing everything else.

* * *

_Encrypted message from General Draven._

_Decoded by Sergeant Erso at 1300 standard._

Return the ship, Erso.

* * *

Jyn trudges up a glass hill. Her well-worn boots scrabble for traction and she slides down the incline. She braces her palms near her feet and tries to bear crawl upwards. Pressure and pain twinge her lower back, but she finally scrambles up over the hill. A small hut waits, unassuming, on the other side.

Mud walls sag gently at the side as the hut keeps standing on the frictionless ground. Its deep, earthy brown contrasts sharply with the clear, icy blue of the forest. The hut appears unconcerned with its disruption; cracking through the glass with easy warmth.

Next to the open doorway sits a wooden bench. Just like the home, it is unevenly handmade. The shadowy figure that rests on it tilts gently to the right. The figure grips a grounded staff with one hand to keep from sliding. As Jyn leaves the hill behind her, the shadow calls out.

"Little sister!"

Chirrut waves in her general direction with his free hand. Jyn smiles at his foresight and the epithet. Of course he knows she would come. Never mind that Jyn had changed her destination coordinates three times before making up her mind.

Jyn runs the rest of the way to him, slip-sliding as she goes.    

* * *

_Encrypted message from Ensign Rook._

_Decoded and translation application implemented by Sergeant Erso at 0900 standard._

J, 

     I hope everything is okay. I know you would want me to wait for you to message first, but I have some things I need to say and it's easier to write them than wait for you to comm. 

     It's not fair that you left like you did. I didn't fight or anything when you went, because I know you have some things you have to deal with. 

     Just talk to me next time, okay? This will never get easier for us, I don't think, so we have to stick together. 

     I miss you. 

     -Bo

* * *

The war room has not changed. It has the same plethora of screens, the same random milling of officers, and the same grim general leading a briefing to a bunch of dignitaries and rebels. Cassian sits stiffly at the Council table watching as Draven outlines all of rebel intelligence regarding the second Death Star. He refuses to shift or fidget despite the fact that his hip and leg started to ache an hour ago. Other Council members cannot contain their restlessness. Even Leia Organa has occasionally rolled her neck to stretch the muscles, and General DoDonna keeps cracking his knuckles. Draven frowns in disapproval, but does not pause in his briefing.

"Based on our operatives, we have confirmed that the Death Star II will be accompanied by two Star Destroyers to Yavin IV. Each ship will have a full crew, but, as of now, no ground troops," Draven finally completes his presentation. 

Dodonna nods with a final snap of his knuckles. Leia Organa's brow wrinkles. 

"So they'll eliminate the planet only?" She questions. 

Cassian nods to confirm. His own neck cracks. The pain ricochets up his spine. "As far as our intel indicates, they believe this to be the last strike against the Alliance. No reason for them to take hostages for information when their opponent will be wiped out of the galaxy." 

"They underestimate unguided cells," Mon Mothma adds. "Flattering as their attention may be, they do not grasp the extent of the disenchantment with Empiric rule." The Council begins to murmur. They do not appreciate the idea that they are unnecessary.

Cassian understands, though. There will always be those that fight. He and Mon Mothma realize that reality and its inevitability. If they falter, someone will rise to take their place. It is the only trait they share with the Empire.

"It doesn't matter to them. The Empire relies only on control or destruction," Draven says. No other members qualify his remarks. Cassian realizes that there may be more than one similarity. The epiphany sounds like Jyn. 

* * *

_Encrypted message from Princess Organa._

_Decoded by Sergeant Erso at 2100 standard._

Mission brief prepared. Jyn, please report.

* * *

Kay clangs and rattles to signify its intention to speak. Cassian keeps reading his datapad. Communications continually scroll across the screen. Blue light filters over the grease in his hair.

"You have not slept in two days, Captain. This reduces your ability to adequately parse intelligence by 76. 41%" Its optical sensors narrow on Cassian. Kay catalogs the purple bruises under its charge’s eyes and the ripe scent of cold-sweat. Only two days without rest and the captain falls apart. The decay is beginning to seem conscious.

Cassian does nothing but flick his thumb to bring up a different comm stream. His eyes are glazed, unseeing as coded communication flashes in at least fifty-two different languages.

"You have not spoken to Ensign Rook in both those days. The two are potentially correlated," Kay tries again. Perhaps Cassian is unaware of his own self harm. The idea does not align with previous data, but Kay can alert him all the same.  

Cassian still does not respond. He stays fixed on his datapad. 

"Sergeant Erso has been gone for two weeks. It does not make sense for you to break from your routine now." Kay uses Jyn Erso to shock Cassian out of his lethargy. No one has mentioned the sergeant in front of him since her departure. All other organics appear afraid of his answer, or possibly the lack of recognition in his eyes. Only Bodhi would press him to talk about her and what had happened before she left. He said she had seemed scared. Kay had never appointed coward to her profile.

The comment does not spark significant movement from Cassian. His fingers do not even twitch to change the comm feed, though Kay knows Cassian cannot speak the language.

Kay logs the data appropriately. 

* * *

_Encrypted message from Ensign Rook._

_Decoded and translation application implemented by Sergeant Erso at 0500 standard._

J,

I'm being shipped out. A bit of a different posting for me, but the team is good. You like one of them.

I miss you.

_-_ Bo

* * *

A sharp breeze cuts through the humidity. Sweat beads and rolls from her forehead chest. Jyn's feet slide out from under her as she whirls to avoid the hit. Baze is slower than her other sparring partners, but every time he punches she has to make sure she does not get clipped by some meaty part of him. His body fills the wide open rink they spar in.

Chirrut laughs off to the side, again perched on the uneven bench. Each time Jyn falls on the slick ground, he knocks his new crystal staff so that the rink echoes with tinkling glass. Chirrut makes the whole planet laugh with him at her expense.

Baze enjoys it. He purposely trips her rather than take her out.

"Could you actually fight?" Jyn spits over the bell-like ringing. She addresses Baze, but Chirrut responds.

"Not everything is such an expected battle, little sister."

Jyn stops trying to shove Baze. Her hands pause above his chest, the futility of her action unimportant. She glares at Chirrut through the too long line of her bangs.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asks, all her impotent physical aggression carrying into her voice.

Baze uses her distraction to sweep out her feet. He crouches, quicker than she can respond, and kicks out her knees. Jyn slams into the ground on her back. Glass crunches. Chirrut's staff thumps out another tinny victory.

Above the ringing, Baze explains. “The way you fight must match the outcome you want.”

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

_Decoded by Sergeant Erso at 2450 standard._

     You have been assigned. Your presence is requested back on base. Return immediately.

* * *

The bland Intelligence conference room is the same from base to base. Nothing but a table and a few chairs occupy a dark corner of officers’ quarters. Before the base began to evacuate, Kes Dameron would sit there with him and Shara Bey. They all appreciated the calm from the mess hall’s noise; though Kes would try to drag him out into company. Bodhi would join them when he could. He always kept his datapad clutched in his hand.

Now, Cassian eats his meals alone. Kes is deployed with the Pathfinders. Shara and Bodhi have x-wing missions. Only he and the other Intelligence officers remain on Hoth as the plans are finalized.

The silence pushes at him, nudges him further into a corner. Cassian carries his datapad now. Its light the only illumination on the protein packs he scarfs down.

Only Kay knows where to find him.

* * *

The weeks of respite lay out a routine. Chirrut and Baze meditate in the morning, one more receptive to the action than the other. Jyn reads and sends messages in her own form of meditation. They spar. Baze cooks; because Jyn burns water and Chirrut enjoys poisoning them while blindly reaching for spices. They part for their sleeping quarters. Jyn can hear the soft sounds of conversation from the room that Chirrut and Baze share. Every night, without fail, they come to one another and talk. Even Baze’s voice rumbles lowly throughout the small hut.

Dinner is where she sees the simple comfort between them. Like now, where Chirrut ladles a thick stew into his roughhewn bowl. Blotches of sauce splash onto the kitchen counter. Baze swipes up the mess with his forefinger and pops it into his mouth. He hums in pleasure. Chirrut's ever present smile widens.

Jyn wraps her arms around her knees and continues to observe.

* * *

Draven finds him easily enough in the hanger. Cassian has his hands under the engine of Bodhi’s former x-wing, but his gaze wanders above the ship's hull.

"You have to go without her," Draven says. He keeps his hands behind his back. Cassian does not turn or acknowledge his superior officer.

"That's fine," is all he says.

* * *

_Encrypted message from Ensign Rook._

_Decoded and translation application implemented by Sergeant Erso at 1430 standard._

     J,

     Have you heard from C? He's not at base—which is odd considering. Hopefully he or D told you something. I checked with L and L, but both say they don't know. I think she does, but can't tell me.

     Let me know what you know.

     I miss you.

     -Bo

* * *

"When should I go back?" Jyn asks.

"Our story is not to tell you how to write yours," Chirrut answers.

* * *

"You are taking an unnecessary risk, Cassian," Kay scolds. Its new vocal output struggles to achieve the same dry emotion as the original KX series.

"I cannot enter with you per our usual protocol." Neither can it express the same level of worry.

"I know, Kay. It's fine." Cassian does not look over from the blue lightening of hyperspace or remove his hands from the ship's controls. He does not do comfort anymore.

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

* * *

_Encrypted message from Princess Organa._

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

* * *

_Encrypted message from General Solo._

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

* * *

_Encrypted message from General Draven_

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

* * *

_Encrypted message from droid unit K4-PN._

* * *

_Encrypted message from Ensign Rook._

_Decrypted by Sergeant Erso at 0400 standard._

C is MIA.

  
We need you. Come home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again!
> 
> I know the style of this chapter is a little odd. Again, I'm doing what comes organically to me rather than force one style out of this story. I would love to hear what you thought and how you like it!
> 
> Also, definitely inspired by the work: your words are mine to keep by skitzofreak. This change in style happened before I read their work, but the layout and language is definitely thanks to their amazing writing!
> 
> Please comment, they give me wiiiinnngggssss.


	5. Sloth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is not a scam, though. It is a retrieval."
> 
> \--  
> In other words: The beginning of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not look at this chapter anymore, so I did not edit. Please let me know if you find any mistakes, I would be happy to correct them!

They swaddle her in Imperial red silk. Her fingers and toes get lost in the fabric. All the burns, scars and callouses that encompass Jyn Erso disappear. She is now just a generic Imperial woman, clothed in finery and only alive by her eyes.

Jyn watches this new woman in the mirror. When she turns, so does her reflection, but the person it represents does not connect. This is An’yal Ingresso looking back at her.

An’yal, the sloppiest slicing job Jyn has ever done, is fairly nondescript for her position. Just a daughter from Coruscant whose father has enough credits to weather regime change. She is not rich enough to court favor or poor enough to invite derision. A floater, a body circling the fringe of good society; that is An’yal.

Slicing such a balance into an identity takes skill. Usually, Jyn would paste her holoimage into the background of some society pages. If given the proper time, she could even falsify charitable donations to prove An’yal’s middling wealth. Jyn has swindled more than a few full wallets with promises of credits going to the hungry, and they were welcome to check with the causes she had previously granted as reference.

This is not a scam, though. It is a retrieval.

Leia stands back, just to Jyn’s right in the mirror.

“Well, you certainly look the part,” she says. Bodhi nods enthusiastically behind her, away from his own reflection. His Imperial uniform chafes at his neck and his confidence. The suit weighs with memories of last time. Small hives breakout along his forearms. They are hidden by the long sleeves, but Bodhi knows they are there.

“It’s strange,” Baze adds. He and Chirrut lounge on the room’s lone cot. Chirrut has kicked his feet into Baze’s lap, his wry smile still in place. The same kriffing grin from when Jyn had asked them both to accompany her back to Hoth.

“I think you look beautiful,” Chirrut says. Baze swats at his left ankle while Bodhi stutters out a laugh.

“Blind idiot,” Baze grumbles. Affection underlies his irritation.

Jyn ignores their antics in favor of sliding a small knife into her sleek chignon. She looks to Leia, who adjusts a few bobby pins until the knife disappears.

“We’re ready then, yea?” Jyn asks her motley crew. They shrug, but they all share the same determined line along their foreheads. Something wild lurks in the air. A surge of savage protectiveness, maybe. It is a more heartwarming battle cry than Jyn had hoped. Ready or not, they would go to rescue one of their own.

Leia lays a hand on Jyn’s upper arm. Jyn cannot feel the touch thanks to her long sleeved dress, but the warmth grabs her all the same.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” Leia promises. Jyn clasps her own hand over the one on her tricep. Thanks stops in her throat, sliding back down the greasy panic coating her esophagus. Leia seems to understand, she releases Jyn and goes to make the same conditional goodbye to the remainder of Rogue One.

Jyn picks her way to the ship, careful of the dress’s short train. Shadows of her previous mission—phantoms of Cassian and Bodhi’s laughter echo through the deck. Their journey to Utupau was only sixty standard rotations behind her, yet there are already ghosts of happier memories. Jyn has lived this before. She has mourned before the dead had stopped breathing. So many years spent wondering if Saw was still alive or if her father had survived. Never has she lived with the knowledge that she left, because she was the one always left behind. Now, in the emptiness, Jyn has to acknowledge she fractured the only home she has ever known.

Bodhi bounds up the on-ramp and breaks the quiet. Chirrut and Baze step on behind him. They stand in the dark ship, a semicircle, watching one another.

“We’re going to get him back,” Bodhi says. He does not stutter.

* * *

They land on Coruscant mid-cycle. Light from the planet’s star filters through its bio dome, heat mild and slipping just past the duraglass. Chirrut closes his eyes and basks in the sun from the open airlock. His tailored suit captures and traps the warmth, a nice reprieve from his breezy robes and the ice of Christophsis. Baze spares a fond look at his husband. They had both missed the bright glare of Jedha.

Jyn idles royally on a separate bench from her teammates and readjusts the folds of her skirt. Bodhi steps out of the cockpit and onto the landing pad to meet the approaching ‘troopers.

“Identification,” one of the two demands.

“We already gave our codes when we entered atmo,” Bodhi says. He is a bit better at lying now, channeling his very real anxiety into feigned confusion. A hired pilot would be submissive to armed troopers, but he also had to impress his client and protect her privacy. At least, that is the story they agreed on during the six standard days they traveled where Jyn swore at her datapad while trying to wrangle them all scandocs without the holonet.

The second trooper shifts and mutters something. Bodhi loses the comment in the tinny reverb of the soldier’s helmet.

“You have landed on a private dock. Please provide identification,” Number One says again. Two harrumphs, clearly this time, and a hand twitches towards the blaster at their plastoid hip. Bodhi sucks in his stomach. The rest of his muscles freeze before a half-flinch. Centered, calmed, like Kay or—C3PO!

“There is no need for any violence. Mistress Ingresso keeps all the scandocs on her person.” Bodhi sweeps a hand—the one not shaking—in Jyn’s direction. Chirrut and Baze turn their focus with him.

Jyn stands, small and regal. The sun saturates the blood red of her dress. She eyes the two troopers, pale skin and fire-green eyes flaming. One and Two immediately relax their stances. Two’s hands slacken completely from their blaster. They have interacted with Imperial wealth before, and neither wants to be burned by this rich woman’s strange preferences. If she fights for independence in the Imperial patriarchy, it is not for them to question.

She smiles, her teeth sharp, and disarms them further. Only then does Jyn hand over the scandocs: one wealthy merchant’s daughter, one contracted commercial pilot, one business man, and one bodyguard. The troopers glance quickly at each identification. Neither One nor Two bothers to match the profile to the sentient. An’yal Ingresso so fully fits her identity that the troopers assume the rest are just as real.

“Will that be all?” She asks them, her voice sugar edged with salt. One nods and quickly returns the docs. Two gestures forward, guiding the party to the Imperial complex doors. Chirrut smiles and holds out his arm for Jyn. She sweeps down the ramp. Her dress trails behind her, a river of fire. She links at the elbow with Chirrut and they lead Baze on.

* * *

Jyn has seen the inside of two Imperial compounds. The first was her fifth mission with the Partisans. Even then they had trusted her small hands with a bomb and her knack for finding opportunity. She only had to slip inside the heavily guarded gate and drop a rucksack inside the checkpoint, playing at the lost child she was then. No one from the Empire thought to root through her bag full of Stormtrooper toys. No one grabbed her when it exploded, either.

The second time was a mistake. Jyn had taken a job from a fairly reliable contact on Geonosis. He had promised her an empty house and a rare collection of Jedi artifacts. All she had to do was get a recommendation from the Imperial commander’s seamstress, Elerica Vin, and pose as a maid. Then the complex would be Jyn’s alone. Elerica gave the recommendation, but she preferred the reward of turning in a thief over her cut of the stolen goods. So Jyn only saw the inside of the front door before she was arrested.

This compound leaves behind the military sparseness of the first and surpasses the grandeur of the second. Everything is pure, untainted white. The walls, the tiled floors, and the even the furniture gleams ivory. Each strategically placed chair or table is tall and imposing, but the edges curve in more classic modular design. A few cushions, and at least one plant, are Imperial red. The color bleeds against the pearly background.

Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod stands just inside in his grey Empire uniform. His arms open to his approaching guests, but his eyes constantly shift. The red pins of his title, Director of Imperial Energy Systems, stick out awkwardly.

“Ms. Ingresso, I’m glad you could join us,” he says. Jyn peers at him over the raised tip of her nose. Jerjerrod is the personification of is file. A talented engineer turned moff, he does not have the usual Imperial charm or grace. Neither does he possess their gleam of ambition. Instead, sweat dots Jerjerrod’s upper lip and his right tics with the effort of keeping a gracious smile.

“It’s a pleasure. I would hate to miss such a party,” Jyn calls back. The ease in her voice crackles. Chirrut presses weight into his hand at her arm. She clears her throat and tries again.

“This is my business partner, Majed Bicha.” A nod to Chirrut has him stepping forward, out of her grasp, with an outstretched hand. Baze stays admirably still while the two shake.

“We appreciate you coming, Bicha. The Ingresso family has a history of finding quality suppliers,” Jerjerrod says.

Chirrut grins widely. Jyn resists the urge to punch herself in the face. She knows that smile.

“Oh yes,” Chirrut says. “And I know it when I see it.”

The moff looks to Jyn for the appropriate reaction. She titters, covering her mouth with the hand not reaching to pull Chirrut back to her side. Jerjerrod laughs as well, but the confused distress between his eyebrows does not smooth.

“Ah—yes.” He coughs. “If you do not mind, the other guest is waiting.”

“Please, lead the way,” Jyn answers for herself and Chirrut. Jerjerrod does not note her independence, despite the Empire’s normal feelings regarding female empowerment.

“Is your wife in attendance?” Jyn asks as they walk down a narrow, white hallway. She counts six closed doors, three on either side, before they stop at an open entryway. Jerjerrod waffles his weight from the ball of his foot to his heel.

“No, I—actually I am not married.”

Jyn smiles. One less pair of eyes.

“Well that’s a shame. I’m sure Majed would love to help find you a match. He still believes in the force of love, you know.” Her teasing is more for Chirrut than Jerjerrod, but the moff still flushes. He bites the inside of his lip, willing the color away, and seemingly forgetting about the other figure waiting just beyond the doorway.

“Are you married?”Jerjerrod asks. The words fumble. Each one sticks and drips slowly from the roof of his mouth.

Chirrut’s nose wrinkles and his lips curl upwards, but Baze presses the Kallidahin sign for idiot into his low back to keep him from laughing.

“No. It’s not for me,” Jyn says. She weighs her next words carefully, balancing them on the tip of her tongue. If Cassian is compromised, she cannot be a known associate.

“Though, one of my former beaus was supposed to be here. I haven’t seen him since I was very young.” Jyn attempts a light, coquettish laugh, but the sound falls heavy. Jerjerrod shrugs off the awkwardness. His shoulders lower with Jyn’s moments of gracelessness.

“I’m assuming you mean Captain Willix?” He asks. “Yes, he’s here, but he won’t be joining us today. Apparently he’s come down with some sort of flu from his time in the Tarabba sector.

“A shame,” Chirrut says. His lower lip juts out much further than necessary. Jyn subtly elbows him in the ribs. Of course, it does not deter him.

“I know An’yal was looking forward to _reacquainting_ herself with him,” Chirrut continues. He even waggles his eyebrows salaciously. Jyn fights for control of her fists.

“Actually, the captain is recently married—to a former grifter!”

Before Jyn can feign shock at the scandal of one of her alter egos, another voice interrupts.

“Are you going to gossip like ewoks all day, or are we going to conduct business?”

Jerjerrod pivots abruptly and marches into the sitting room. A woman perched, military straight, on one of the red couches glares back at him. All the ambition and ferocity Jerjerrod lacked flashes in her brown eyes.

“Right, yes.” The moff gestures for Jyn to assist Chirrut into the room.

Baze posts himself at the door while they settle in. No one, not even Jerjerrod’s security, pays him any attention. The others start to talk. Something about durasteel shipments and blocked supply chains. Baze only cares about the two Stormtroopers guarding the hallway and the comms in their helmets. He does not know how many reinforcements there, or their response time. The last fight he was this blind was Scarif.

With a hand at his crotch, Baze crassly signals a need to use the bathroom to the troopers. They nod in understanding. One points in the general direction. Baze silently taps his knuckles twice on the portal frame. The second trooper says something lost in his helmet, but they both step up to take Baze’s place.

He spares one last look at Chirrut and Jyn before pushing off in the indicated direction. Trooper Two follows him for a moment. The whole helmet swivels as they watch, but Baze goes where he was directed.

A quick step. Double back. No trooper eyes on him and no visible cameras. There is no guarantee that he is invisible, but he pushes on anyway.

Baze tries one of the doors. He punches in a string of nonsense, as directed by Jyn, into the adjacent keypad. Nothing happens. Baze thumps the kriffing thing with his tensed palm. The keypad beeps, chirps again, and then the door slides open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple notes:
> 
> 1) Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod is not my creation (which most of you probably know because you're all better Star Wars fans than me!). He is the moff in charge of Death Star II and the one who panics in a New Hope every time Vader is set to visit (understandably). 
> 
> 2) The woman in the sitting room is Lieutenant Laubu Wispr, and she belongs to moi. I love her and she's important. You will hate her (hopefully), and it will be great. She actually features in this story, unlike my darling Private Prashik--the only one brave enough to talk to an angry training Sergeant Jyn. 
> 
> 3) I hope the switches in perspective worked! 
> 
> 4) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review. It feeds my soul, gives me wings, and gets us all to the end faster. Oh! And come find me on tumblr: deadpanprincess.tumblr.com   
> I LOVE PROMPTS. LOVE THEM.


	6. Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No, that is not true. Cassian knows, he knows that she chooses him. She is a soldier, yes, but not a regimented one. This life is not easy for her. She could run. She wants to, sometimes. But she stays because she cares, because she is home. Mi fuega. "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shout out goes to @skitzofreak and @literatiruined me (can you do html links on these things?)! Thank you both for the encouragement and the reading and the suggestions. This chapter would be a mess without you.

Nothing. 

There is nothing beyond the door. A perfectly made bed, a nightstand, and a lamp -- all of which Baze assumes is white -- lie in the darkness. The Force, what little left of it there is, moves sluggishly through the room. No one has stepped inside for months.

Baze backs up and slaps the keypad so the door closes. Once it slides home, he quickly returns to the meeting. The troopers guarding for him silently move aside. Baze reclaims his place. Nothing has changed. Chirrut still hangs on to Jyn's arm, both for sight and to guard her temper. Because, or in spite of, his hold, she still keeps control of her alias. Her nose stays raised and her turns of phrase are elite. Jerjerrod continues watching her with wonder. Even the woman who chills the room with her disinterest has kept the exact same strict posture. Apparently, negotiations are going well. 

Chirrut stirs, and orients himself as Baze arrives. His feet shift and nudge Jyn's toes as an announcement. She takes his cue.

"Thank you for the warm introductions, Tiaan. I do apologize, though, but Maja and myself need a moment to refresh," she says.

Jerjerrod jumps from his seat. "Of course, of course. I apologize I didn't think of it sooner. Let me show you to your rooms."

Before Jyn can make the expected answering apologies and graces, Lieutenant Wispr interrupts.

"They can find their way, Jerjerrod. There are only six rooms after all." She smiles as society dictates. Laubu Wispr is all closed lips and barely contained violence. Darkness, heavy and unapologetic, drags around her.

Chirrut stands, his arm once again stretching for Jyn. She slides beside him. They click into place.

"I guess I'll see us out," he says. Both he and Jyn chuckle. Jerjerrod's lips thin painfully.

Jyn and Chirrut stroll gaily from the room; Chirrut’s joke adds buoyancy to their exit. Baze follows a moment after. He meets Lieutenant Wispr's gaze before he leaves. She does nothing to hide her scorn.

* * *

Another day, another empty room. Rogue One has searched Jerjerrod's complex for three days, one room at a time. Each one contains a matching bed, nightstand, and lamp. It is the same as the adjoining quarters Jyn and Chirrut share. Three days, six identical rooms, no captain found.

Jyn paces. Ten steps from the bed to the door. Twelve from the 'fresher to the nightstand. She flicks the lamp on and off. Light, dark, light, dark. She tries a few crunches when her fingers cramp from the small light switch. Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. She does not sweat--she cannot. The dove grey Imperial dress she wears does not hide anything, least of all sweat. Some push-ups then. Ten to thirty. Thirty to ten. Jyn counts her reps in all the languages she knows. Basic, Corellian, Huttese, Mandalorian, a smattering of Festian--

"I can hear you thinking, Little Sister." Baze steps into her room through the connected door. He props himself on the jamb, one massive shoulder blocking the entire entry. Jyn does not bother responding. She flops down onto her back and sighs. They have discussed this in as much length as their codes allow. Cassian is here, but Cassian is missing. Five rooms have held nothing but dust and disappointment, and they have spent three days in negotiations for supplies they cannot deliver on. Each moment they stay makes them more likely to be caught.

"What would you prefer I do?" She grumbles to the ceiling.

Baze frowns, a soft downturn at the corner of his mouth. "Would you like to know what I would do?"  _ If it were Chirrut,  _ floats between them.

"Yes," she says.

"Fuck it," he says. The words drop into the silence, weighted with joyous disobedience. Screw the Rebellion, the mission, the intel. Forget about the danger to her crew, her friends, her family. Find him. Just find him.

Jyn rockets up, her jaw twitching as she considers. If Cassian were in her place, he would never forget what he was sent to do. The mission would come first for him. After, his people. He would shoot himself before allowing harm to come to either. Jyn has accepted his zeal as her own. No, the Rebellion is not hers, but it could be. It tries to be. More importantly, it is his and he gives to her what he has.

She is not Cassian, and she will never be Cassian. The war is hers now and she fights in the only way that makes sense. Jyn will tear down the stars if it means keeping him alive. Her Rebellion lives in him. 

"So burn it down, yea?" Jyn asks Baze. He nods. For the first time since Christophsis, she smiles.

Jyn clicks on the comm link on the inside collar of her dress. Four sharp presses of static let Bodhi know to keep the engine burning. He responds immediately. Six clicks let her know he has been ready since they touched down.

She pops to her feet. Jyn shoots Baze one more look. He is a pillar of understanding. She nods. He mirrors, then disappears into the darkness of his room with Chirrut. 

Jyn does not bother changing from her dress, instead taking the time to switch her flat slippers for steel-toed boots. When she runs from her room, each of her steps clank and echo down the hallway as she approaches the last unopened door. Her only hope. Jyn keys in the manual override. Just as Baze had described, the keypad beeps in outrage. She punches the kriffing thing. It chirps, hostile, but slides  the door open all the same.

* * *

The door opens, sliding with the soft  _ whoosh  _ of well oiled machinery. He knows the routine now. No reason to turn on the light when she will just follow her same procedure. Cassian slowly wrangles himself out of bed to prepare.

Lieutenant Wispr struts inside and leans against the wall. She waits for him to speak. No words push past the choked, inflamed length of his throat. Cassian can only muster up a quick up-down of his hand against his forehead. A salute in name only. 

“Still sick, then?” She asks, mocking. He hums in affirmation. Laubu steps closer. Her hands emerge from behind her back, breaking their parade rest. A mug of something steaming wafts under his nose. Back and forth, back and forth. Cassian’s head lolls as he tries to follow. He is cold, so cold. Warm bantha milk would be welcome at this point. 

“Tell me,” Wispr demands. “Is this how you got her? Small promises? A few easy pleasures?” 

“No,” he says. Though he has no idea what she is talking about. A light would be good. He could see her eyes then. 

“Do you think she really loves you? You’re just an escape for her.” 

No, that is not true. Cassian knows, he  _ knows _ that she chooses him. She is a soldier, yes, but not a regimented one. This life is not easy for her. She could run. She wants to, sometimes. But she stays because she cares, because she is home.  _ Mi fuega.  _

He shrugs. His shoulders weigh like mountains. The lieutenant does not like his complacency. She is fully in front of him now (how did she move so fast?), her hand on his cheek, a playful flick of her nails against his nose. Cassian flinches, but does not back away. So similar in height, in coloring. Almost, almost. 

“Maybe she had her own reasons. For a self serving bastard, you’re not the worst to look at,” she says. The words remind him of something, someone. A moment alone, in the dark, with rougher hands and greener eyes. A bit of teasing and deprecation before her hot hands trailed lower down his chest. 

No, this is not that. Cassian knows her, knows the way her breath trips upwards when she looks at him. Her grip is strong, righteous, telling him everything she cannot say. This is a tactic. A strategic use of the human body to will down his guard. No, he knows fire. He has been burned. 

“So what was it?” Wispr asks. “And did you get what you came for? Is this your glory?” 

Cassian does not have the strength to respond. Willix should shrug again, uncertain how to give his lieutenant what she wants. This cover is a stoic man, calm and collected as a clone who has only known death might be. An officer by opportunity, a captain by impunity. Not unfeeling, but certainly not stupid. He would show complacency to a hostile superior officer. But his brain only knows  _ sleep  _ and  _ fire _ in equal measure. 

She lightly slaps his cheek to bring back his focus. He sees two--three--of her. Three short and angry brunettes, a wrinkle along the bridge of their noses at their distaste. Cassian has missed that look.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” He is apologizing to a memory, a hallucination of the woman who left him a message on his datapad. Cassian drove her away, held too tight, he knows, he  _ knows _ . But he has been a weapon that belonged to the hand of a different man, and owned nothing. He was hers and he thought---

A fever raises sweat along his hairline and down his naked chest. Cassian cannot think anymore. His brain is melting, his body is burning, even as he is so, so cold. He wants the tiled floor of the ‘fresher and his cheek pressed against steam. Half in, half out, the way a good agent should be. 

Laubu retracts her hand. Cassian misses the warmth, her heat. No--no, that is not…He is lost in the spiral of flaming, muddy thoughts. 

The door closes. The door opens. Close, open, close. Days--he needs to put something in the dead drop. Kay waits so close. So far. Open, close, open.  

This time, the lone lamp is lit. He huddles under the bedspread. Cassian shifts. Then again, when he fully realizes another presence in the room. Longing for the bed beneath him, he stretches his leg from the mattress, dressed in a black sock and Imperial gray trousers. His body follows. Long, lean lines of muscle spill out from under the cover. No shirt, a raggedy unkempt beard, but he is up.

Cassian, whose skin has no color, whose eyes are glazed, whose lips are blue. He wavers where he stands, listing from one side to another. The sharp gaze that normally burns now struggles to focus.

"Lieutenant," he tries. A sloppy salute grazes his eyebrow. His hand slaps down to his thigh. Cassian does not see her. His eyes are dull and glassy, lingering on her Imperial uniform.

"No, Anchor, it's me," she says. Desperation soaks her words. She takes a cautious step forward, trying to ground his eye. Cassian watches, but does not follow. One moment she is at the door, the next she stands just within his reach. So vivid. All the other hallucinations were much hazier. They did not know her codenames for him, what counted as her endearments. He misses her, the real her. 

"Tu sombra nunca me da paz," he says. In another world, she would have laughed.

Cassian stumbles backwards, away from the shadow, but she grabs him. She has no gloves. The palm of her hand rubs roughly against his bare arm. He freezes. No steaming cup. Just warm, warm hands. His eyes still on her ripped and torn knuckles, two sets of them blurring into one. 

"Fuega?" He asks. The word splits in half. Jyn grips his arm tighter. Real, real, real. He is there and alive and dying in her eyes. 

"It's me, it's me." She whispers into the shell of his ear. He collapses, the weight of want heavy on his chest. Between his realization and light grip on reality, she wraps her arms around him and hugs fiercely. Jyn,  _ Jyn  _ keeps him upright. He knows her name, he can think it freely now that she is here. 

Cassian wills his body to reciprocate, but he can only drop his head into the crook of her neck. She supports him. He kisses a sliver of scarred, naked skin. Heat, fire, where his lips are ice.

"We have to go," she says. Exhaustion or relief, Cassian can hear both warring in her words. Jyn does not break their embrace. She just slips one arm back to the collar of her dress and pokes at the comm unit near his mouth, keeping him upright all the while. Her thumb brushes his lower lip. He whines into the warmth. If the world stopped spinning, he would be embarrassed. 

"Ssh, Anchor, they're coming for us. You're going to be okay." He hears that, too: the hope under the lie. Cassian had promised never to lie to her. Jyn never swore the same oath. 

* * *

They make it out to the landing pad. Baze drags Cassian beside him on one side, the trigger of his blaster cannon clutched to the other. Jyn guides Chirrut out in the same formation they have used the whole mission. Their arms lock around each other. Bodhi waits in the cockpit, the glare of Kay's optical sensors glow beside him. She has no idea when Bodhi found him, but she will have to thank him for her ability to breathe. Jyn cannot go on another recovery mission to Coruscant.

The on-ramp lowers. Chirrut flows into the ship with Baze and Cassian. Jyn checks the perimeter, a quick glance around, from old habits and fathers she cannot shake. A shadow steps out from under Cassian's ship. Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, Imperial grey. She meets her darker reflection with her blaster drawn. 

"I see you found him," Laubu says.

Jyn does not respond. Laubu sighs and rolls her eyes to the brilliantly bright sky above. 

"I know better than to hope for rationality from a merchant's daughter, and yet," she continues. "And yet, I had hoped you would see him for what he really is." 

Jyn raises an eyebrow; both to encourage the lieutenant's monologue and at the fact the woman has yet to pull a weapon on her. Behind her back, Jyn waves on her team. Their cover is not blown. They need to act as if they are just two Imperials sorting their differences or they will have to fight the whole Imperial fleet to get off the planet. 

"A traitor," Laubu says. "He married a Wobani prisoner for information, did you know that? Tiaan likes to paint the story as a scandalous, holodrama romance, but the truth is so much colder. He plucked a piece of scum from her cell and used her for his own advancement. That is the man you have on your ship. 

"You and I," she says, pressing stalwartly forward. "We are Imperial women. We fight for every right and every promotion. We cannot take advantage of the old boys’ channels. We have to wait for men to die before we can take our proper place. Will you give up all your connections, all your newfound power, for a man who would not do the same?

"You are smart, An'yal. You have a knack for negotiation and for playing your opponent. I've seen how you work Tiaan. Imagine how strong we could be together. No one would question a woman's power in the Empire ever again." 

She steps closer and closer, and fanaticism colors her pink. Laubu glows under the sun, in the security of her own righteousness. Jyn cannot back down or lean in. She stands under the onslaught of power and desired camaraderie. The lieutenant is alone in the way Jyn remembers from years in slicing in alleyways and pickpocketing in cantinas: a woman underestimated. 

Jyn grinds her teeth together so hard that her jaw creaks. Laubu Wispr is not Orson Krennic. The woman is bitterly ambitious, yea, but even Jyn can see that their similarities go past the surface. This is who she would have been if the Empire had kept her family. A small rebellion in a single person, who fights the only norms she thinks she can change. So far removed from the real dangers of the galaxy that her personal power seems most important. 

"You know it's true. I can see that you do." Laubu smiles without aggression. A real grin that pulls her full lips thin and rounds her severe cheeks. 

Jyn understands Cassian's self hate now. He sees people, no matter their side, as people.

She fires. The shot slices through the lieutenant's many ribbons and medals, straight to her heart. Wispr dies instantly. 

* * *

Rogue One pretends not to see the wetness tracking over her cheek. Bodhi simply pulls them into the air and flies them out. He offers the same codes from their arrival. They all hold their breath. Nothing happens. No one screeches after them. A collective exhale lightens the ship. No one is coming;  it will take a few hours before someone looks and finds Wispr dead on the tarmac.

Cassian groans against the chilly durasteel floor, restarting them all. Bodhi sharpens his gaze on the horizon, his knuckles white. Jyn drops down next to him. She tangles her hand with his, but looks to Baze and Chirrut for information. Baze shrugs. Chirrut steps closer.  

"There are no cuts. Nothing is infected," Baze says. He had carried Cassian through the compound without issue. The captain had seemed dizzy and discombobulated, but nothing some water could not fix. Now, they all see the deep layer of sweat coating his face and darkening his shirt from cream to yellow.  

Chirrut offers nothing, though his pinched pout says it all. 

Cassian is dying and no one knows why. 

"Poison." 

Jyn, Baze, and Chirrut whip around. Kay stands just outside the cockpit. Its compact body cuts through the space with maximum efficiency at the rest of the crew's attention. It kneels and presses its cyber-kinetic forearm against Cassian's pulse point. His heartbeat races, a wild drumming  _ thump  _ magnified by Kay. 

"His heart?" Jyn asks. “Is that how you know?” 

"Beating rapidly from low oxygen in his blood. Trying to fight off the induced fever. Which pumps the poison to more of his organs. It is statistically likely that one kidney has failed or will fail in the next few hours. What is of most concern, though,  is keeping his heart and brain alive," it answers.

"What do we do?" Jyn brings her second hand around the first, both of them trying to warm Cassian's icy fingers. The lightning-flash memory of Wispr's death warms her from the inside out, now. Wispr saw the traitor Cassian wore as a second skin and poisoned him. Without justice or jury, she infected him for the sins only she believed he committed. And he is  _ dying. _

"Dialysis will bring about the most positive outcome, but we have neither machine nor tubing nor transfuser." Kay replies while it rises, its optical sensors flicking away from its captain.

"Make it," Jyn says.

"That is not--"

"I said  _ do it. _ " Her voice drops a full octave, low and whispered with command. Baze lays a hand on her shoulder, but she shakes him off in fury. Chirrut pulls Baze back to the edge of the ship. They sit in silence, watching as Kay rips thin tubes from the wall it deems nonessential. Bodhi hollers from above, but no one answers. Kay quickly flushes the tubing with their water supply. Then it attaches needles on either end.

"It is fortunate that Cassian is a universal recipient,” it grumbles as it fashions the tubing to promote blood flow. “Otherwise, you would kill him with your recklessness.”  

Jyn releases her stranglehold on Cassian to shoot the droid a one-finger salute. Damned no matter what she does, right? 

She keeps one hand clutching Cassian tight, but the other arm drops from flipping off Kay to offering the vein in the center of her elbow. The droid pauses, a half hesitation, before jamming the needle into the crook. She hisses and clenches Cassian's fingers. He barely registers the added pressure. A loll of his head against the floor or maybe just the shift of the ship. The needle from one artery in each arm does not even receive a grunt.

“Did I ever tell you, little sister, of how the kyber temple came to be?” Chirrut’s lilting voice cuts through the steady  _ drip drop  _ of blood from her veins into the tube. Only twenty-four drops before he speaks. That might be a new record. 

She hums, asking him to continue. 

“I was told,” he says, “that the crystal rose up from the Force.  Jedha was a desert. Nothing could survive in its cold sand. Nothing would grow. But the Force is not empty. Slowly, so slowly life began to take root. A kyber crystal came from the depths of the planet, inched up through the soil. Growing, growing…”

The hours pass. Blood drips steadily from Cassian’s left elbow into a trash compactor. Chirrut weaves a tale of desperation and hunger, of faith and perseverance. Cassian’s other arm  receives a thick stream of clean hemoglobin from Jyn. Chirrut makes her focus on the Force, on the life it brings to those who have faith.  Cassian regains color, minute by minute. She pales. The Force, a fairytale and a prayer.  _ I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.  _ Pale white like the light of Scarif.  _ I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. _ Until all she knows is darkness.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ("Tu sombra nunca me da paz" = Your ghost never gives me peace)
> 
> If you want backstory about their codenames/pet names, feel free to come chat/yell at me @deadpanprincess on tumblr!
> 
> So--what did you think?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Another impossible mission. More insurmountable odds. Yet here they are, again and again and again, fighting the inevitable. There will always be a Death Star, an Empire, a war. Even if this one ends, none of them will ever stop fighting. The idea is--comforting. They will always fight, together and for each other."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost at the end, folks!
> 
> Just a quick note: Both Jyn and Cassian have discovered where the second Death Star was being built based on information received at Coruscant. I didn't feel like writing that discovery because, well, it's fanfiction and I can handwave that away!

Blood loss has always left her achy and chapped. Her skin is too tight against her bones, dried out and stringy like bantha jerky. Jyn swipes her tongue against the roof of her mouth to rid herself of the acrid dust. The taste lingers. 

“You’re okay, right?” Bodhi asks. She keeps herself upright by his pilot’s seat, jamming her waist into the corner and curling her fingers around the edge. He inches one of his own hands away from the ship’s controls to cover her white knuckles. 

“Fine,” Jyn says. She is; she is better than fine. Only missing a pint of blood, but without any other injury. Her whole team came out of kriffing Coruscant without serious physical trauma. She should get a damn medal. 

Of course, a sound body does not mean a sound mind. While Chirrut seems to have enjoyed his time undercover and Bodhi is no worse for wear, Cassian has completely retreated from Rogue One, preferring to spend his time in his assigned bunk. He surfaces only for meals and Alliance transmissions. 

Every time he sees her, he chokes like she has pulled out one of his lungs. 

Her nails dig into the faux leather of Bodhi’s chair. It is not her fault she looks like Laubu Wispr. Jyn cannot control her genetics anymore than she can wrangle the Force. Yet he acts as if she reminds him on purpose, slinking against the side of the ship to avoid even the glint of her pale skin in the light of hyperspace. He never meets her eyes. Always skimming over the top of her head or the toes of her boots as he passes. 

Sometimes she forgets that he can see her and chooses not to, in favor of thinking she does not exist at all. 

She  _ is _ fine _.  _ Absolutely fucking fine. Because Jyn can handle being this close to him and not running her thumb against his. She knows just how to survive with space between them. The air is not heavier or more fraught. Her need to run has not morphed into a desperate urge to punch some color back into his face, into her own. No, Jyn can handle this non-separation. She is  _ fine.  _

“Stop worrying,” she commands of Bodhi. He scoffs, lips vibrating. A long, too sustained moment of disbelief before he finally looks over his shoulder at her. 

Dark brown eyes filled with preoccupation. She gets that look. Jyn also struggles to pretend that family has not nestled itself into the marrow of her bones and does not move with every swing of her truncheon; a willing host for parasitic worry.

“Really, it’s not something worth worrying about,” she says. Bodhi ignores that too, preferring to flick one of her nails. Discomfort ripples up her arm like a vibroblade against steel. A loss of blood has her delicate, apparently. Sensitive to even the slightest of hurts. 

“You don’t get to say that,” Bodhi says. Nothing hard lines his voice. “It’s not just about you.” 

Jyn stuffs the flare of anger deep inside her chest. The damn thing growls and claws at her ribs for escape, but she kicks it down. Her nostrils flare from the effort. 

He sees something, maybe a tension in her shoulders, so he turns back to the viewport before continuing. “The people who love you worry. That’s just how it works.” 

“Well it’s stupid. I can take care of myself,” she says. Jyn tamps down the flinch from the childishness she hears in her own voice. It is Bodhi. He is allowed to see her weaknesses. He  _ is.  _ No matter how hard her body fights her. 

“That’s not--” Bodhi scrubs his too long sleeve against his forehead as he realizes he is repeating himself. The words stop, because there is nothing else to say. He knows how family works; he had one not so long ago. The Death Star had wiped every atom of them from the galaxy, but it could not erase their memory. Bodhi carries the idea of them like she wears her kyber crystal: an unconscious piece of himself, another growth of his body.  

He extends that love to Rogue One; superimposing each of them over the role of those he had lost. They are not replacements, but another facet of his affection. 

Jyn cannot place her new found family over Saw or Galen or Lyra. The few friends she made in the Partisans or in her years alone were never close enough to be family. The roles that everyone knows and slots their loved ones into--She has seen happy fathers and mothers and siblings, but studying them is not  _ being.  _ Like Cassian, Jyn is only a facsimile. She can inhabitant the idea of someone enough to pass, but she never truly believes the act.

She tries to have hope that she can, that she can live in her performance of being someone important to someone else, but it is one of the few things she finds easier said than done. 

“Is this like the  _ talk _ ?” Jyn asks, playing cheeky to avoid his real concern. “I’ve already destroyed my uterus, Bo. No Rebellion babies to worry about here.” 

Bodhi flushes the red of a discharged blaster bolt, but he presses on.

“You need to make it right,” he says. Bodhi does not leave her any more room to pretend. 

“Why me?” She challenges. “I came back. That says enough. He’s the one--”

“You’re the one who left in the first place,” Bodhi interjects. He does not slam his fist against the console. His voice stays even and soft. Yet his quiet outburst smacks her harder for its gentleness. 

Jyn leans away from his chair. Her knees quiver, almost buckle. Somewhere along the way, all of her melted into weakness; so open that even Bodhi can unthinkingly hit her vulnerabilities. She will blame it on Scarif. Easier to stomach the idea that the Death Star burned away her walls than there has always been this fragility waiting inside her. 

“I came back,” Jyn whispers again to the ship’s wall. She will not meet Bodhi’s eyes in his windshield reflection. Because she hears it just as loudly as he must: the little girl of Lah’mu, lost and alone but just strong enough to defend herself. She left Mama there in the grass. Jyn let Krennic take her father. When Saw left her, she never fought to be back by his side. She has been left, yes, but she does just as much leaving through inaction. Running away is always easier than running towards when there is nothing to physically fight. 

“I did. I came back,” she says again, a paltry defense. Or maybe a chance to convince herself. 

“You still left,” he says to her glassy shadow. 

She has nothing. No words can erase the way she ran. Jyn is just an accumulation of everything she did not or could not do. If only her nature was not to destroy. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, quiet and soft. Her lips barely move. 

Jyn does not wait for Bodhi. She knocks her knuckles against the head of his chair, then silently disappears back into the hold.   

* * *

Endor forms from hyperspace streaks into a solid blue ball. One minute, blackness. The next, a whole world waiting outside the view screen. Rogue One clusters in the cockpit watching as their destination appears. Chirrut and Baze take an entire corner, Baze keeping Chirrut steady as his husband leans back against him. Jyn gives herself a moment in her peripheral to watch them. How their touch flows so easily. They are a harmony. 

Her eyes flick to the other side, where Cassian leans forward in the co-pilot’s chair. He braces his hands on the flight controls while Kay stands guard behind him. Bodhi clutches the reigns next to them, face drawn and pale. The second Death Star resides here, and Jyn is sure he does not relish a second round. 

Jyn, though; she is itching. Adrenaline pumps through each blood vessel and rackets up the rate of her heart. Her body is a steady pulse of fury. Because of the Empire, because of this monstrosity, she will never forget the sins of her father. They doom her to pay for them over and over. 

“So,” Bodhi breaks the tense silence. “Anyone have a plan?”

Everyone stays frozen. Until--

“I can go in as Wispr,” Jyn says. “I mean, she and I are basically the same person.” 

Cassian turns, whip-sharp, to where she stands. Smoke burns behind his eyes. The line of his mouth is rigid. 

“No,” he says. 

“Actually, Captain, that plan has merit,” Kay appends. “Based on my records, Jyn Erso and Lieutenant Laubu Wispr share enough common features that 70% of organics are likely to confuse them. Even if the Lieutenant has been found deceased, there is a chance that Imperials on this planet will not check her credentials based on previous encounters. The Lieutenant did run supply shipments here.”  

“No,” he says, at the exact same level. 

Jyn spits out a breath as she turns to him. “I don’t see you having any better ideas.” Despite the heat of her words, his eyes are soft. She expects him angry as Eadu, where his eyes narrowed and focused like Kay’s optical sensors. Instead, Jyn receives  _ want.  _ Longing as she has never known from him. 

They have never pined, but this is what it might look like.

“So what would you have us do?” She asks softly. 

“You’re not her,” Cassian says instead. That same softness lingers in the wrinkles of old smiles. His words weigh on her chest, shoving her pulse into her stomach. It beats there, slow and constant, as he keeps his eyes on hers. They always speak in silence and heavy looks. Now he tells her:  _ I see you.  _ Awareness shocks down through her skin. She exists. 

Jyn licks her lips. “So another plan then, yea?” 

Baze coughs, breaking the tension and covering Chirrut’s laughter. Of course the whole team knows Cassian’s meaning. They all speak the language of quiet and touch. 

“We don’t have to disguise ourselves as people they know?” Bodhi tries. “I mean, Jyn, you can slice a couple new identities.” 

“The Empire will have put all your descriptions on the holonet as soon as the Lieutenant was discovered dead. It is almost statistically impossible for any of you to pass yourselves as other people and stay together. A group of your size would require inspection,” Kay says. 

They all sit for a moment in silence, thoughts passing as an almost tangible tangle above them. Jyn sees each of her teammates in turn. Their focus, the complete concentration that furrows their brows and purses their lips, drives her to smile. Another impossible mission. More insurmountable odds. Yet here they are, again and again and again, fighting the inevitable. There will always be a Death Star, an Empire, a war. Even if this one ends, none of them will ever stop fighting. The idea is--comforting. They will always fight, together and for each other. 

With that security at her back, Jyn proposes, “Well, they’re looking for three human male Jedhans, a brunette human female, a protocol droid, and some sort of Aldaraanian man. Though, as far as they know, we captured Captain Willix and have him hostage. That identity might not be completely burned.” 

“And?” Kay prompts. 

“So what if we gave them one troublesome boy and an astromech?” 

Bodhi frowns. So does Cassian. Baze crosses his arms across his chest, nudging Chirrut in the shoulder. Kay’s optical sensors adjust with its discomfort. They all hear the idea, but none of them understand until Jyn scapes the bangs away from her face with a clenched fist.

“Who has a razor?” She asks blithely. 

* * *

Strands of hair float down around her shoulders like snow on Hoth. Thin and brown, each piece delicately drifts from her head to the floor of the ship. Jyn does not mourn the loss of her hair. She has never cared about it really. Her constant bun is for practical purposes, not aesthetic. Even the bangs she keeps so carefully trimmed are more about perception rather than personal preference. And this is not the first time she has pretended to be a young man in order to gain entry.

Yet, she has to sit on her hands to keep them from running over the short fuzz of her new cut. Her fingers lay flat underneath her knees as Bodhi carefully scraps against her scalp with one of Cassian’s few razors. The hair falls, and she wonders if anyone in the Rebellion will recognize her when she gets back. Despite the severity of her former bun, the style fit more with the femininity of the Rebellion’s female soldiers than the androgyny Jyn wore as a second skin with the Partisans.

With them, she had covered herself in scarves and ambiguity to keep away sexual interest-- sparing her few trysts while on the run--but she has never questioned that there would  _ be  _ desire. 

Cassian works in the adjacent corner. He pulls Kay’s personality core from the deactivated shell of the protocol droid. A worn and beaten astromech sits beside him, already plugged into a datapad scrolling with code. The poor droid’s internal diagnostics have to be overhauled to accommodate Kay’s much more complex core. Despite the scope of the work, Jyn watches Cassian quickly overcome each obstacle from her peripheral. Each time he runs into an issue with the code, his whole face folds into a glower. As he solves the issue, a single part of him relaxes. Either the sharpness of his jaw or the flare of his nostrils or the crease between his brows. Every part of him smoothes and loosens until the astromech rejects his updates again. 

“All done,” Bodhi says from behind her. They both pretend he does not notice how she stares at their Captain; Bodhi in favor of nudging Jyn’s tricep to free her right hand. 

“Want to feel? It’s surprisingly soft,” he says. 

“What do you mean  _ surprisingly _ ?” Jyn mocks offense. Bodhi just smiles, unseen, waiting for her to finally give in to the urge. She tries to hold out another moment just to spite him, but Jyn cannot help but scrub her palm against the crown of her head. The hair is so short, and soft but rough. It reminds her of the coarse grass of Lothal, and nights spent searching for dry patches of ground to sleep on after trekking through the marshes all day. 

The not-so-bad memories, those surprise her. 

“Now we match,” Bodhi says. Jyn can hear his grin. She turns over her shoulder to smile up at him. His humor infects her, helps her see the loss of her previous cover (bangs, eyeliner, femininity) as a joy. She is free now, and without the threat of immediate death from identification. It always was fun to throw off the identity of Jyn Erso. 

“As far as I can see, you look beautiful,” Chirrut says. She snorts her approval. Baze throws a pair newly tailored Imperial pants over his husband’s face to hide Chirrut’s cheery smirk. As Baze just refit them from Cassian’s height to Jyn’s, the hem barely reaches the middle of Chirrut’s chest. 

Cassian grabs the trousers and offers them to her. Jyn keeps her eyes just beyond his right ear as she stands. If he looks through her like before--she throws the thought from her mind, shooting into space from an airlock. 

“Here,” Cassian says. The pants hang in front of him, away from his body, but gripped too tightly to be dropped into her waiting hands. Jyn finally meets his gaze. It is steady on hers, unflinching. He roves over her new hair, the familiar upturn of her nose, her fiercely pressed lips. The tension she holds in her jaw matches his own. They are stuck in their constant staring contest, but for the first time in six days, Jyn knows Cassian no longer sees Wispr in the cut of her cheekbones. 

Carefully, he strokes his thumb across a remnant of her eyeliner. 

“Come home,” he asks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to @literatiruinedme for encouraging this chapter. It's not what i planned on writing and I'm not totally happy with how it turned out, but she really gave me the motivation to push it out. 
> 
> I truly hope you guys enjoy! 
> 
> Let me know--is this where you expected us to end up right before the end?


	8. Chapter 8

Jyn and Kay make quick work through Endor’s undergrowth. Kay paves the way, flattening uneven territory with its heavy wheels. Jyn jogs lightly behind it, almost tripping when it comes to an abrupt stop before the construction compound. Hundreds of non-human sentients work on scaffolding around the very top of a rounded dome. This Death Star stands at least twice as high as the original. None of the workers are clipped into safety harnesses. One teeters dangerously over the edge of the scaffold, its bare toes clinging to the durasteel for balance.

She holds her breath, waiting for the inevitable fall. The sentient leans further against the Death Star, trying to smooth the outer shell of the ship. It cannot reach. Its arms windmill back and forth as it tries to recapture its center of gravity. For a moment, nothing happens. The sentient hits statis, and then tips over. It drops ten feet, forty, ninety before smacking the ground with a _snap._

No one stops working. A stormtrooper gathers the limp body and drags it through the grass to a pile of similarly squished souls. They stack, one on top of the other, in a barely fleshed ditch. Jyn cannot look away from the toes, fingers, elbows, thighs. Imperial efficiency means stripping the dead of their clothes and passing the uniforms on to the next sentients.

The Alliance does this too. _She_ has done this. Nights when the wind froze her skin and she had nothing over her head, Jyn would find some slime-diseased rot breath who preyed on fems outside of a cantina and take their clothes. Credits too, if they had any. Sometimes they did not live to see the theft.

But this--this waste of sentience. Futility licks at her determination. A ‘trooper prods a Rodian up to where the other organic fell, and the cycle starts all over again. Maybe this one will not fall, maybe she can liberate the site before the Empire eliminates them like they did on Scarif.

Hope, right? Rebellions are built on hope.

Kay beeps quietly in binary. Jyn turns to it, and Kay takes the lead. It rolls down the hill to the construction area. The ‘troopers guarding the perimeter see them, as told by their quickly drawn blasters.

Jyn raises her hands. The defence raises the hem of her drab tunic and shows them she has no gun or holster. “Whoa there,” she says in a heavy Nar Shadda accent. “I’m just coming back from break. Didn’t know that was a capital offense.”

“You’re late,” one of the three ‘troopers says. “Break ended twelve standard minutes ago.”

“I know, I know,” Jyn sighs. “But this one here got caught in some kriffing grass or roots or whatever you kriffing call nature and I had to dig out the wheels.” She knocks a fist against the top of Kay’s head. It beeps with indignation, but the ‘troopers laugh.

“Yea, try sleeping outside. Got twigs and shit growing out of my suit,” Trooper Two says. They all have a chuckle. Jyn inches around, using the humor to slide to the side.

“Well I gotta get back to work guys, but thanks for the good time.”

“You need us to clear you with your supervisor? I know the foreman’s been especially tough since they made the announcement.”

Jyn scratches the side of her nose, all casual. “Nah, I’m good. I left late anyway so I’m really right on time.”

The ‘troopers shrug and spread back out into position. Jyn and Kay duck under the scaffolding and slip into the shadows. Once again, Kay leads, rolling slowly over random debris and left behind tools. Jyn steps cautiously behind it. She lets it get farther and farther ahead, keeping it just in sight as she investigates the area. Sentients stack new durasteel into crates that is then pulled up by the workers stories above. Apparently, the Empire built this Death Star faster than they could put in a turbo lift. On the ground, workers bend over welders and wrenches. Sweat drips from pores--if they have them. Some pant to get rid of the heat. The whole hanger weighs with the fire of building too fast.

Perspiration dots the back of her neck and slides sluggishly down her spine. Jyn prays to the Force that the band around her breasts keeps sweat from outlining the fact that she is fem.

Jyn and Kay split. Kay spins closer to the few computer terminals dotting the edge of the compound. She tiptoes into the heart of the operation, able to look up at the bottom of the Death Star. There is a thermal exhaust port like in her father’s original design, but already Jyn notes that the port does not cut through to the kyber core.

They have to destroy it before it flies. There is no flaw to exploit once it is in the air.

She taps the comm in her pocket three times. _Target found._ Jyn has no receiver to hear their response, but there is no doubt Cassian will relay the information to the Rebellion. He has probably spent the last hour of her and Kay’s infiltration finding a safe frequency for communication.

Two workers, a Rodian and a Cather, stroll by with durasteel paneling easily slung over their shoulders. Jyn dips into the scaffolding, aligning her body to hide behind the wide beams and their shadows.

“You think it’s true?” The Rodian asks. His companion shrugs her massive shoulder.

“Does it matter? It’s not like the Emperor is going to promote one of us. I’ll probably be back in Wobani as soon as this project is over,” she says.

“Yea,” the Rodian replies, defeated. The two continue on, but Jyn cannot follow their path. Her breath is somewhere back a minute ago, before they appeared. The Emperor is coming. The Emperor is coming _here_ , to Endor.

* * *

Jyn has no way to inform her team about the impending visit. They do not have codes for Emperor Palpatine. At least, she does not. No one in the Rebellion thought of Jyn Erso as a first choice striker against one of the most powerful men in the galaxy. They only have so many opportunities to deal a blow to the Empire, they would not waste it--officially--on her. Even Jyn questions her own ability to handle this new development. Rumors say that the Emperor can suss out a traitor by smell. Before Chirrut, Jyn would have thought that ridiculous.

K2 spins its wheels next to her. It cannot gain traction on the slick ground, though where it would go Jyn has no idea. The droid repair room they have been assigned is little more than a cupboard. Droids of all types: mouse, Kx, astromech, battle, and even medical. It is a graveyard of detached parts and unlit eyes.

Whichever machine or sentient that had held the position of repairman before her did not mind the uncharged androids staring at them at all hours. Jyn cannot say the same. She tries to hide herself in the corner of the windowless hole, but even there she finds limp wires and disembodied appendages. The quarters close in on her. Always the darkness of what could be beyond her circle of light. Of course she knows that they cannot move without her assistance. The droids have all been decommissioned to this room because they do not function. But still, Jyn struggles to look farther than range of her head lamp glow without shame. Superstition has never done anything but make her more cautious. It is a war, after all.

Kay bleeps. Jyn hears through ones and zeros in its chirps. _Transmission_ is easy to decipher. She has heard and coded that one herself more than a few times. _Received_ comes as such a relief that she reaches out and lays the palm of her hand atop Kay’s cool metal head. It whirs in irritation but cannot move away.

Maybe it too needs comfort. The days underneath the second Death Star have felt endless and disconnected. Jyn only sees other sentients when she climbs out from her workspace into the mess. No one speaks to her. They barely speak to each other. A portentous hush blankets the construction site, adding to Jyn’s anxiety. She has tamped it down well, packaging her fear into a pocket of herself that she does not examine. But she has become too used to Baze’s low rumblings in time with Chirrut’s chanting. She misses noise and comfort and feeling _safe._

Ridiculous, considering that so many years of her life were the opposite, but it is as if her new experiences beat the old ones back. She certainly does nothing to protect them. Jyn prefers her new found family to solitude. Usually.

It always comes back to this. What she wants versus what she knows. Jyn has had too much time to herself to think. About running away. Her cowardice. It felt natural to leave the Rebellion for Christophsis. She had needed time to remember who she is outside of her relationships to others. All of her justification and reasoning is rational. Jyn _can_ think logically about this given enough silence. So she understands her conversation with Bodhi in the ship, now. Her leaving was not the problem. All of them understand the need to escape, the fear of being betrayed, the vulnerability of potential. But they do not leave intentional hurts behind them. Jyn’s last message to Cassian, her last-second lie to Bodhi, she chose to hit them where it hurt. Accusation, abandonment. She had ended a fight before it had even began.

The door to her workspace _whooshes_ open. Her thoughts spill out her ears, all of her attention turning to the stormtrooper backlit in the doorway.

She is caught. That has to be it. Troopers have not touched her space since she settled in what--three, maybe four, days ago? To have one come in, blaster resting on their shoulder, has to mean the jig is up.

Jyn rises to her feet. Fists clenched. She will not go down like this, lifeless among a hundred other dead droids. Jyn Erso fights for what she wants, and she wants to live.

She waits for the blaster to lower, knees bent to spring. The trooper drops their gun--

All the way down to their side.

“Got a problem for you, tech,” they say. Then they promptly turn without waiting to see if she follows. Jyn takes only a half hesitation for the bland, filtered words to compute. A problem. Innocuous enough. Unless she is the problem; but why not just shoot her first and ask questions later? The Empire has no patience for lulling their prey into a false sense of security. Galactic domination takes too much time.

Jyn shoves Kay into the corridor in front of her. It beeps, chirps, whirrs, a subtle cacophony of frustration before it gains enough friction to roll behind the trooper. Jyn brings up the rear. She catalogues the new hallways, which are any of the ones not between her droid cupboard and the mess hall.

Everything here gleams. Unlike the open ceiling above the workers’ quarters, the officers and stormtroopers receive accommodations with a roof. No dust or leaves or natural debris makes its way this far into the complex, or if it does, a droid comes and sweeps it away like it was never there at all. Once the second Death Star is completed and the site abandoned, this area will look as if it was never inhabited.

Yet Jyn can just make out the sounds of gambling and shit talking that seem to identify all higher ranking Imperials. Behind durasteel doors they bet their high wages on the lives of their laborers. Who will last more than a week, who’s bound to die in the next few days, when the next shipment of alcohol will come.

The trooper never looks behind them to her or Kay. Not that they would realize the pulsing red light on Kay’s dome means that it’s recording. But still, Jyn can thank the Force for small favors.

They stop inside of a large control center. A circular panel sits on a dais raised a few steps from the ground. Laminaglass covers one side so that whoever stands in the middle can see into the construction site and the surrounding fauna. Tactically, it’s smart. Put a trooper there and they can see whoever comes and goes from the front entrance. Strategically, it puts too much emphasis on that exit and gives a false sense of security to the guard. Jyn knocks her knuckles against Kay’s chassis. The droid beeps, obviously offended that she thought it needed any help registering the importance.

“Panel’s broke,” the trooper says, gesturing to the right side of the control pad on the dais.

Jyn steps up to examine. Kay whines, a low, hollow tone, because it cannot pop itself up the stairs.

“Shut up,” says the trooper. They deliver a swift kick to Kay’s backside. Jyn whirls around at the _thud_ of plastiod armor against metal. Kay lights up with indignation, but can do nothing but rattle from side to side.

“Hey! Leave him alone.”

“What? You’re afraid I’m going to hurt a droid?” The trooper kicks Kay again. Jyn rushes down the stairs to--

Do nothing. There is nothing that she can do without giving away her skills. She grinds her teeth together as she stands between the trooper and Kay, shielding it with her body.

“Please,” the begging has bile pooling at the bottom of her mouth. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“Droid fucker,” the trooper taunts. Jyn does not move. The trooper shrugs and stomps their way back to the door, ostensibly to keep guard. Never mind that Jyn still has no idea what part of the control panel she’s supposed to be fixing.

She steps back up onto the dais. Kay bleeps behind her, but Jyn has no instructions. It’s smart enough to keep recording without her explicit instructions.

Jyn crouches down and immediately finds the port door. A quick flick of the screwdriver at her waist, she’s inside a mess of wires and blinking lights. Of course, every cord is grey. Unlike when Jyn used to make bombs for the Partisans, and they had to scrape whatever parts they could. She would string together red, yellow, blue, lavender; every piece of every forgotten droid or ship or unidentifiable machinery had been bundled together for her impromptu explosives.

Just like then, Jyn would have to follow each of the wires to their connection points to make sense of the mess inside the control panel. Her fingers skate along the closest cord. One end leads to a blinking light above her. Jyn traces the other down, down, down until she hits the floor. She should have known. The fucking Empire doesn’t like a mess, no way would their wires be easy to access. To fix the unknown problem she’ll have to go _under_ the construction site.

The real question is how to wedge herself into the accessibility panel and below without dislodging the complicated array before she knows which parts she wants to disrupt. Jyn tries to coil a handful of cords in each of her hands to clear a space. A few on the right are too short to really move. Not going headfirst, then. She wiggles her left foot into the blackness of the panel. There is enough space for her to dip her leg in the space below, probably under the dais. Jyn shifts to her side and then slides her right leg atop her left. Everything fitting so far.

How far does the blackness go? If she drops into it, how far will she fall?

Propping her head up on her elbow, Jyn dips further into the panel. Her feet hit nothing but air. Maybe this is why the troopers let her in with little to no issue. She is smaller than anyone they actually brought to the construction site, possibly the only person small enough to fit into the tricky spaces usually reserved for droids. The need for her stature (and supposed skills) makes enough sense that they would not question her entry.

Jyn sucks in her stomach and slides along the duracrete floor into the panel. The fall barely lasts a second. She hits the bottom with a resounding _thud,_ even though she left her steel toed boots back on the ship. Saw always did tell her that muscle had more density than fat.

She tries to view her surroundings, but Jyn can only see the vague outline of wires through the darkness. A soft _click_ and her headlight illuminates hundreds of grey cords. Some travel back up to the control panel. Others weave sideways further into the darkness outside of her light. They surround Jyn, trapping her in the small patch of open space. She could be here for three of four days just trying to follow each line to its conclusion.

Leaning in close, Jyn finds that each wire has a small black stamp around every foot. Numbers, letters, a series that will help her identify what she is dealing with if she read the Empire’s tech manual (probably called _Villainy 101: Confusing your enemy through organization_ ).

She traces a cord at random. It snakes upwards, back to the panel. Nothing separates from its clones except that stupid stamp. XL5Ng8. A nonsense identifier. Jyn cannot tackle this problem by being methodical. She has no datapad to discreetly download all of the Empire grunts’ protocol. So, she improvises. With a sharp tug, Jyn yanks the cord out of its port.

Nothing happens. Silence.

The control panel, at least a good foot above her, starts to screech. A singular alarm beeps over and over again at decibels only meant for ice wolves. She feels the reverberation of the trooper’s footsteps as they run up and over her crawl space.

“Shut it up!”

“Is this the problem you’ve been having?” She yells back.

The trooper stomps, shaking the tinny metal ceiling above her.

“Make it stop!”

Jyn shrugs. Nothing she can do but keep going. With both hands she wrenches cords from wherever they are housed. Full cables and frayed ends hang limply in her fists. The alarm blares on. A sharp warning without pause. The trooper guarding the control panel obviously thinks it is a tech issue and not an invasion. The others could use just this kind of distraction to sneak in.

She should relay a message through Kay. Just a few taps to try and spell out her location in binary. Jyn hauls herself out of the crawl space, wires clenched tightly in one hand. The trooper looks down at her. They are wonderfully good at radiating displeasure through their helmet.

“What is all that?”

“You told me to make it stop.”

“Don’t be insolent.” They yell above the pealing alarm.

Jyn bites back a smile. No good in getting herself shot before the battle really begins. “It’s not the control panel.”

“Well fix whatever it is!”

Well, _shav it._ That smile is coming out anyway. Jyn slams her elbow against the trooper’s throat, simultaneously grabbing their blaster rifle and wedging it under her shoulder. The trooper hunches over as they choke and Jyn grabs on their ribs through their plastoid armor. They try to wriggle out of the hold, but she has a firm grip, enough that she can bend and twist to through the trooper over her shoulder. They collapse in a huff, unmoving.

“Can’t stop the Rebellion now, can I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said there were only 8 chapters and that we were at 7 of 8. Well, apparently, I lied. This got too big to be one final chapter, so I'm dividing it into two. I think you guys know where this is going now, but the Battle of Endor is epic and awesome and demanded to be written. This story has taken such a turn from the small, intimate details piece I meant to originally write. Thank you to everyone who has read and/or commented. Your support and enjoyment of this story means everything and what keeps me pushing through to the end. We're almost there, really! I promise!
> 
> As always, feel free to come find me at [tumblr](https://tumblr.com/deadpanprincess)! Prompts and thoughts and squealing are always encouraged!

**Author's Note:**

> So--this spilled out of me. Why? I don't know. Should I continue?


End file.
